Fate Blood Hunt
by thelegendarysupernerd
Summary: Spoilers: Childhood's Beginning. In which the Grail creates a copy of the Good Hunter for the purposes of the Grail War. Squidbaby Good Hunter tags along on the summoning and quite enjoys her newly humanish body and all the bloodshed. The sweet bloods sings, and many are granted eyes.
1. Chapter 1

Fate Blood Hunt

A/N:

Warning: SPOILERS out the wazoo for the ending of Bloodborne.

I started writing this because I really wanted to read this story, but no one had written it yet. So I did. That said, I can't recall any time that I've actually written fiction before, aside from a rather embarrassing attempt at fanfiction shortly after I graduated high school, and most of my writing was college mandated and for engineering papers. We'll see how this goes.

I really wanted to see this idea done and I wanted to see if I could get a sort of happy end for as many of the characters as I liked as possible. It's really sad that I'm using Bloodborne to get a good end. What's wrong with me?

Chapter One

A sound. Not quite a sound, the deep thrum of a noise low enough and powerful enough to be felt in the lungs more than heard in the ears. A ringing, the sharp clear sound of a bell, echoing long after its source had ceased. It was both of these and neither, in as much as sound and pitch can be used to describe a sound and sensation that wasn't noise to something that didn't have the proper organs or senses at a high enough level of consciousness to understand. It was an echo, a ripple across reality and dream, unfelt by all save one. The Good Hunter turned within her dream, drifting and curling through the air, curious. There was very little here in the Hunter's Dream, and nothing unexpected. The Doll below, the occasional hunter passing through the workshop, and the somewhat rarer ringing of a summoning bell. But this was more than that.

The Good Hunter descended from behind the bright moon in the sky to the field of flowers where she had fought Gherman and her predecessor. Blood no longer stained the gentle rises and falls of the meadow, but memories lingered. Elegant tendrils of flesh touched the open ground, lightly anchoring her. She moved forward, thin tentacles keeping her low while the rest of her twirled above, drifting and dancing in constant motion.

She moved past the gate, ribbons of flesh gently writhing behind. A gentle tug on the wrought iron fence propelled her onwards to the workshop. A pause at the gravestones of awakening to see where her hunters were. Clarence was dodging the swipes of a particularly grotesque Cleric Beast in the streets of Cathedral Ward. A bit strange as the Church Hunters, even unbound by the Dream, were usually able to stop things before they went that far. Oh. And there he went, back to the Lantern before charging forwards again. He was young still, new at this game. He'd learn some semblance of caution eventually.

Violetta was cackling madly as she crushed and cut another man-eater boar apart with a Ludwig's Holy Blade. CONCERN/CAUTION/WARINESS undulated through the Great One's flesh, warring with AMUSEMENT/PLEASURE/JOY. Violetta was Gascoigne's youngest, the little girl in the window who recognized her as a hunter by her scent, then asked the Good Hunter to look for her mother. Upon learning of the mother's demise and her father's subsequent complete loss of sanity and rampage in vengeance for her death, the Good Hunter had taken the girl and her older sister to be under the old woman's watch in Oedon Chapel while she went out and hunted. They were sweet girls, and the Good Hunter took the time to sit down with them in the calmer moments of the night for comfort, both for the girls' sake and her own.

Only a few years later, (or perhaps a little longer or a little less, time passed strangely in the Dream) Violetta turned up in the Dream, wearing a much smaller cut of her father's old hunting gear. Speaking with the Doll later, the Good Hunter was able to learn some of what had happened after the night of the long hunt. At some point, Violetta had sought out older experienced hunter's so that she could learn her father's craft to combat the weakened but still ongoing scourge of beasts. Eventually, after growing in skill, she had made a contract with the Blood Minister, binding her to the Dream.

Violetta was the first of the new hunters recruited after the night of the long hunt, when the Good Hunter had ascended, usurping the Moon Presence in the process. With the Church devastated and so much of the city in ruins, hunters were needed. Violetta reveled in the blood maybe a bit too much, but had thus far been able to return to herself after the hunt concluded. With luck and focus, it would continue. The Good Hunter had no desire to lose one of her hunters. Not ever. They were hers.

The Good Hunter never spoke to Violetta. She never spoke to any of her hunters. There was concern about the affects her words and presence might have on the hunter; she'd never seen it end well when a Great One spoke to or interacted with a human during her hunt and she didn't want to break one of her hunters, especially her first. Maybe if she practiced with a few humans she didn't care about, but where would those be found in the Dream?

There were other hunters scattered throughout Yharnam and the surrounding area, but there were no ongoing fights, nothing interesting, so she had to kept moving. Time was somewhat flexible in the Dream, but it was still short. Pushing her awareness out, she found what she sought.

CREATION/HOST/CARETAKER.

"Ah, Good Hunter." The Plain Doll turned her head from the gravestone once connected to the Hunter's Nightmare. She bowed her head, turning it slightly. "How can I help you?"

CALL/REQUEST/BELL/SUMMONING ABOUT/REGARDING/FOR SELF/HUNTER/GREAT ONE.

"How strange. Your hunters know a little of how to call upon you, but do any others?"

NOTHING/FEW/NONE. SOURCE/ORIGIN/CAUSE UNKNOWN/UNCERTAIN. SELF/HUNTER/GREAT ONE INTENT/DESIRE/PLAN: GO/TRAVEL/SEEK SOURCE/ORIGIN/CAUSE. WONDER/CURIOSITY/INTEREST. CURIOUSITY/SEEK-ANSWER/QUESTION: CREATION/HOST/CARETAKER STABLE/CONTENT WATCH/CARE-FOR/OBSERVE DREAM/NIGHTMARE/WORKSHOP.

"Of course. As is my duty, I will look after the hunters in this Dream." The Doll clasped her hands to her bosom. "Take care Good Hunter. You have grown in strength, but I shall still pray for your safety."

One of the Good Hunter's many slim limbs reached out to gently touch the Doll's cold porcelain cheek. GRATITUDE/HAPPINESS/JOY.

The Good Hunter slipped higher into the air, one tentacle grasping at the roof of the workshop to tug herself upwards a little bit faster. The summons had come from a different direction into the Dream. The gravestones below connected to the lanterns in the waking world, but all she felt from the summons was a vague sense of elsewhere. She considered how best to follow. The thrum of the chime still echoed faintly in the under layers of the Dream. Reaching down through the fabric of the Dream around her, there was a slight pull. Allowing herself to be dragged along, the Good Hunter gave what would be recognized on a human face as a fierce grin but was for herself a twisting of tentacles and odd flesh, then vanished and left the Dream behind.

As she grew into her power, the Good Hunter had never ventured too far from the Dream into the Cosmos. Not for lack of desire, but for lack of knowledge and perhaps strength. She knew there was much to find out in the vast expanses of the sky, but she had not the skill to reach it yet. And even had she the skill, she might not be capable yet for her youth. There was some caution as well, there were many beings much more powerful than she. Some were sympathetic in spirit, some were indifferent to the tiny specks below, others were actively malevolent. Nonetheless, she was young enough and small enough that she did not expect to draw attention unless she sought it out. So she stayed close to the Hunter's Dream, growing in power and experience, playing in raw unformed Dream at the edges far from the workshop.

The resonance between the worlds waking and dreaming pulled at her, giving an impression of unimaginable distance and speed, but little sensation of movement. Still, the Good Hunter enjoyed this new experience, as the fragments of dreams and not-space around tugged at her. So this was what was past the edges of Dream. A sense of distances and directions not perceivable to a human viewpoint but with her expanded existence, within her grasp. Moving fare distances forward, a slight left at the drifting vast bubble of dream containing a world in flames, great ships decorated with golden eagles floating in the sky raining fire and death upon numerous raging green beasts. Shortly after, a hard right at no particular land mark, followed by skirting the edges of an endless plain of ash in a dream at the end of its time. A great figure with a gaping black hole in his chest dripping thick sludge did battle with a smaller figure wielding blades of lightning.

Another dream, a scarred man with white hair, a sword upon his back and another in his hand, facing off against a great beast of wood and moss. More dreams flashed past and slowly drifted by. An old man with a long beard threw arcane power against an odd pale man with no nose. A woman with golden hair, afflicted with madness and brilliance in equal measure, stood atop a crumbling masterwork, struggling to restore its function while crying defiance against the skies and a vast army approaching. A fragment of the masterwork somehow greeted her and the Good Hunter waved a tentacle in bemused response. More distance, though no time passed by and she could tell her destination was fast approaching her.

The twisting of dream and reality moved up around her, bringing her just under a small fragment of a dream, barely begun. Within, an endless open plain, the sky trapped in a just barely breaking dawn or the bloody reds and oranges of darkening night. Scorched grass and bare dirt made up the ground beneath. Above, the sky was filled with slowly turning gears, intersecting, twisting and turning, grinding a low thunder. A tenuous connection stretched between it and another nearly identical dream, this one fully realized with a dreamer that knew of its existence. Blades scattered across the barren earth, far off in every direction. An impression of SELF/BLADE/HUMAN BONE/STRUCTURE/SPINE BELONGING/POSSESSION BLADE/WEAPON/TOOL. She slid nearer to the first faint dream, not into but through, and it parted around her.

And there it was. The source of the call. She pushed gently towards the waking world but stopped. Her current form wasn't suited for this. Dream-flesh and eldritch geometries were all well and good in dream, but in the waking world they didn't fit. Reality would push against it, leading to a complete rejection or space distorting in uncomfortable fashions. Fortunately, on the other side, the outline of a body was manifesting and began to pull her in. The Good Hunter wouldn't fit as she was, but that was okay. Long tentacles pulled into themselves, compressing tightly together. Long fronds of delicate flesh twisted together into a single mass, pulling in. Her awareness, stretched around dream and Cosmos and space dwindled, focusing in around her, something the Good Hunter did not expect. SELF/HUNTER/GREAT ONE became me, hunter, human, and then she swung her blades up to stop a spear from striking her through the face.

Shiro fell, the ground hard beneath his aching body. Above him, the madman in blue armor withdrew his spear, spinning it through the air in his hands.

"You know, it's kind of a pity, kid. You get some credit for not being completely pathetic and fighting back, but there can be no witnesses and all that crap" He waved his hand dismissively through the air. "For what it's worth, I'll make it quick." He pulled his spear back for the final thrust.

By this point, Shiro was at the end of his limit. He'd be stabbed, not died somehow, staggered home and collapsed. He would have been content to not move for a day, but then the crazy spearman had shown up again to finish him off. Shiro had fought back as much as he could, reinforcing a poster, a stick, a fire poker, and redirecting the probing strikes that he had a sinking feeling were slow attacks. He tried, but he was a terrible magus and he was only human. And now Shiro was lying on his back, bleeding from a dozen cuts, trying desperately to move out of the way of the spear.

Steel clashed and the spear was stopped before it even made it halfway to him. The moment before the spear was stopped was difficult to process. It happened fast, more quickly than he could really understand, but it wasn't the speed that made the understanding difficult. Whatever happened resulted in a pressure, building up behind his eyes, pushing, building into a tearing pain before peaking and leaving the world feeling just a little bit off, askew somehow, as if wearing colored lenses and pulling them off to reveal a slightly tinted world that wouldn't leave no matter how much you blinked.

There was a woman standing in front of him, a sword and dagger held crossed in her hands and pushing the spear up. Her hair was white and pulled back into a functional braid, her clothing was well made and elegant. A half cape hung from one shoulder, a jaunty cap upon her head with a feather fluttering in the lightly moving air.

The skin of her neck bulged and Shiro's eyes widened as her exposed flesh twisted as if something large and confined within was fighting to get out before giving up and settling down. His head throbbed; Shirou blinked. Her skin was flat and the pulsing gone.

"So you were a Master after all, huh? This looks promising." The spearman hopped back, covering a dozen feet with the motion. "Well then, I am Lancer, and I'm gonna assume you are Saber. Shall we?" Lancer took a ready stance.

And then the woman, this Saber, spoke. Her lips didn't move.

It was the same pressure as when she had first appeared but worse. Far, far worse. It was breathing in until your lungs were full then continuing to inhale. The headache when in the midst of deathly illness when even the slightest of movements reverberated around inside. It was clawing inside of his skull, his eyes were about to pop from their sockets, there was a tearing sensation deep inside him, and it stopped. Shirou fell to his knees staring, arms slack, motionless at this terrifying thing that spoke to him.

Something had irrevocably changed. Not broken inside him, not yet, but it was close. So very near to the edge of sanity and understanding and madness. Shirou slumped onto the ground, barely able to move.

Her head flopped and lolled on a limp neck, twisting around to face him more completely, her body remaining in mostly the same position. Her features were graceful but worn, indicative of a hard-lived life, and attractive such that it was noticeable but unremarkable. It was steel beneath silk. But there was no emotion, no recognition in those pale eyes. Her face was completely blank.

The woman's arms dropped limply, the tip of the larger saber in her right hand digging into the dirt and the dagger swinging freely at her left side, the arm jerking occasionally. She opened her mouth to speak.

A series of unintelligible sounds came out. Coughs and grunts, wordless noises that formed nothing of sense mixed with the clacking of teeth. Her voice was rough and clumsy, not quite tripping over the sounds, but speaking as if the insides of her mouth wouldn't move the way they were supposed to. Partway through, her teeth snapped together suddenly over the tip of her tongue and she inhaled harshly. She stumbled and her legs shook, seemingly about to buckle.

Lancer looked at Shiro before laughing. "You've summoned a Servant at the last moment but she can't even stand, let alone fight," He shook his head. "Let's get this out of the way." Lancer shot forward toward the presumed Saber, spear extended ahead of himself.

One arm raised her sword in a clumsy redirection, knocking the spear a few inches off course. In the same motion, Saber dodged to the side, moving her body entirely out of the way of the strike. Halfway through the dodge, her left leg spasmed, tumbling her to the ground.

"What the hell kind of Servant are you? Can't speak, can't even fight, tripping over yourself. Get up Saber, this is embarrassing." Lancer struck forward again, intent on ending his bumbling opponent.

Shirou could see Saber still partially collapsed on the ground, struggling to get her body up and moving. Sword and dagger moved together to knock Lancer's final thrust into the ground less than an inch from her neck. A high-pitched shriek filled the air like microphone feedback before rapidly fading into static. "Give. Me. A moment." She ground out, words still high and clumsy. "It's been… a long time… since I had a body like this, I cannot be blamed… for being a little unfamiliar." As she spoke, her words became more sure, odd pauses and static in the words lessening. She struck out with her dagger at Lancer's wrists, forcing him back. "If you will allow me a moment to reacquaint myself with my body, I'd be happy to fight you until one or both of us is dead."

Lancer raised an eyebrow. "You're being awfully reasonable about this."

"But of course. You want a good fight, as do I. I haven't had a chance to try to cut anyone down in a very long time." Saber looked sad, though the expression wasn't quite right, a facsimile of emotion. "I'm not sure how long exactly, but far too much time all the same."

Lancer barked out a laugh, "I think I like you. Get used to your body again, then we'll both get a good fight out of it."

"Then I thank you." Saber slowly stood, trying not to fall over. "I suppose I'm giving you a bit of an advantage here, showing off like this, but it's the quickest way I can think of."

As she moved with a clumsiness somewhere between a toddler barely able to move without falling and a gangly teen not yet familiar with how quickly their body was changing, Shirou began to pull himself up from the ground. He looked at Lancer, who looked back from watching Saber and smiled. It was not a nice smile, too many teeth and too much vicious humor, but it was better than getting killed, so Shirou was okay with it.

Shirou turned his eyes back to Saber as he tried to get some strength back into his body. She began with simple motion, extending her arms, flexing her hands, moving slowly back and forth before quickly moving into weapons stances with her odd sword and dagger. When she had fought Lancer, they were two separate weapons; now, they were held in the same hand, the dagger hooked to the base of the pommel on the saber. With Saber's current level of dexterity, Shirou couldn't see how she wouldn't injure herself. Saber seemed to agree, as she broke them apart. Her motions were stiff and rough, but were gaining, or perhaps regaining, a fluidity they had lacked in the initial clash with Lancer. Her movements picked up speed and soon she was a blur of steel and leather, unable to be followed by mere human eyes.

Saber ended her spinning dervish with both blades as one again before turning to Lancer, excitement shining in her eyes. "I could probably do better, but I've kept you waiting long enough." Saber took a ready stance, dagger held angled slightly back and sword held in front.

Lancer grinned. "I think this is going to be fun." He vanished, reappearing in front of Saber, spear swinging upwards. Saber leaned back, retaliating with a slash, then Shirou was only barely able to follow the flow of the battle, let alone the actual actions. How could anyone move so fast? It was beyond belief.

A dozen clashes in the blink of an eye, redirections, parries, and counter-attacks. A few more and Saber was just a little too slow. A stab from Lancer got past Saber's guard and cut across the side of her neck. A trickle of pale white blood slid lazily down.

"What are you?" Lancer asked.

Saber looked confused, then clicked her blades together and lifted a gloved hand to dampness at her throat. Lifting her hand before her eyes, she smiled faintly. "Sometimes, when sanity is lost to the howling void, a final blow is struck. And things change a little more than you meant them too. But here I am, and there you are. If we both survive this, I would be happy to exchange tales of bloodshed the next time we try to kill each other." Blade broken apart again, Saber stood ready. "My blood should have little bearing on this fight."

Lancer chuckled, "Does that even mean anything? I get the whole 'cryptic mystery person' act you've got going on, but damn. I think I'll hold you to those stories and that fight."

Saber pulled something out of her pocket, something white, a little longer than her hand. Lancer moved towards her, but couldn't stop her from crushing it.

And then Saber was even faster than before. Even with as little as Shirou could process from the fight, he could see that. Ash clouds streaking behind her as Saber moved. The half moments where the two combatants clashed were more in Saber's favor, sword blade impacting against spear shaft rather than spear tip blocked or driven away. It wasn't quite an even fight, but it was close enough that Shirou couldn't tell who had the upper hand.

Suddenly, they stopped. And for a moment, Shirou couldn't tell why. Then he saw the streak of red on Lancer's side, blood on Saber's dagger, and Lancer's spear pierced deeply into her shoulder. But she gave no reaction, gazing off into nowhere in particular.

"Oh," she whispered in a soft voice full of unfulfilled longing. "I'd almost forgotten the scent. He was right, the sweet blood does sing." With that, Saber lifted the dagger to her mouth and drew her tongue along the tip of the blade. It could have almost been erotic, Shiro thought, but for the truly terrifying grin and satisfaction across her face.

Saber's eyes blinked rapidly and she inhaled harshly. A feral grin graced her lips. Saber twisted away from Lancer, dragging his spear with her turn and stabbing him in the thigh. Then, to Shiro's eyes, she vanished. And reappeared promptly next to Lancer, blades spinning into him. Lancer jumped back, avoiding the majority of the swings, but one sliced through the top of his arm. Saber had grown even more aggressive, rushing forward, leaving openings in favor of getting another hit. To her credit, it was working. Even as she drove Lancer back, he grinned. It continued like that, at least until she overextended and he took advantage to pierce her through the same shoulder.

It would the normal reaction to backpedal, make some space to regroup, but Saber just lashed out again, more fiercely than before. Several deep cuts appeared on Lancer with his spear otherwise occupied.

Streaks of blood made their way down his face and arms while larger trails made their way down from Saber's shoulder. Both stood ready for the fight to continue until Lancer swung his spear onto his shoulder and jumped back, straightening casually. "Hell of a fight, Saber." He grinned. "Unfortunately, my Master requires me to leave. I was only supposed to be scouting for other Masters and their Servants, not fighting them."

Shirou blinked as he realized that the fight was over. His eyes darted back and forth, taking in the carnage; he couldn't help but think that the yard was ruined. Not the most important thing, given he wasn't dead, but it stuck there in his mind. White and red blood splashed everywhere, none on him somehow, mostly mixed into dirty pink. Craters and scattered debris covered the ground.

"This is rather pushing past the limits of those orders."

Saber looked lost. "We're done? Already? But…"

"I'm afraid so."

"Later tonight, I'll be hunting through the outskirts of the big city if you want to 'bump into' me." Saber smirked at Lancer.

What. No really, what? She wanted to fight Lancer again?

Lancer barked out a laugh. "I think I like you Saber. I look forward to seeing more of you in the war. Later." He waved a hand loosely in farewell then hopped up to the roof and ran off.

"You don't run into too many like that," Saber sighed wistfully, a faint smile on her face. Then she turned to Shirou who was still lying there, barely moving, in shock. "And I'm pretty sure you're the one who dragged me to this waking world. I am…" An unbearable pressure pushed against Shirou from all sides. The scent of moonlight in a falling city. Drifting and twisting through the sky. The sticky feel of blood drying in between his fingers and in his hair. Deep underground caves and chasms and the mysteries sealed within, let out again. The boundless feral joy of the hunt, the chase, the fight, ducking under a scything set of claws and striking back, not a killing blow but a start. An unshakable sense of SELF, but not his own self, a different self, a self made out of…

Pain across his face. Had Saber slapped him? She gripped his forearm and lifted him up from the ground where he lay gasping and shaking. When had he fallen? "Up you get. I don't think that's going to work. Why doesn't… No matter." She pulled Shirou fully into an upright position and set him before her. "The Lancer called me Saber." Then under her breath. "…which seems to work better than..." That building pressure behind his eyes. "...does for you." Shirou staggered again at what he assumed was probably Saber's true name. "What do I call you, little summoner?"

Shirou exhaled heavily with a breath that he realized he hadn't taken. "Forgive me." He bowed hastily. "I am Emiya Shirou. What are you? Who was he? What's going on? Why aren't I dead?" The river of questions rushed out. His hands were shaking. What was this madness?

Saber tilted her head. "You aren't ready for my name yet little summoner. My existence is strange, and that twisted nature carries on my name, spoken in tongues and concepts you aren't meant to know." A smirk. "Though if you want enough Insight to know my name and what I am, continue on this path. I have no doubt you will reach it well enough. You have the makings of a strong Hunter."

The way Saber spoke of insight seemed to imply much more, but Shirou wasn't what it was or if he really wanted to know. Saber turned her head behind her, looking at the wall. "There's something similar to that Lancer coming this way. I'll take care of it so we can continue our conversation." Or apparently past the wall. Saber jumped up to the roof and upon landing lightly, she let out a joyful cackle. "I'll be but a moment." Then she was gone.

"Wait… Wait!" Shirou ran after her, forced to take the long way around. He ran through the house and down the hall before barreling out the front door. Past the edges of the property and down the street, he heard again the clashing of blades. Sprinting around the corner, he saw Saber dodging back from a white-haired man in red. Behind them further down the road was a girl. She… was that Tohsaka-san? What was she doing here?

Ending Authors Note: Violetta and other kid are still around because I hate that quest so much. Thoughts, critiques, give me what you've got. I'm never really written fiction before, so I'll take whatever you can give me.

I make absolutely no promises on any kind of consistent update schedule, unfortunately. I do expect to have this finished eventually, I have most of the story plotted, I've got all of the start, I've got the end, I've got bits for the middle. Now I just have to figure out how to mash that all together into a cohesive and mostly enjoyable story.

So… this was supposed to be maybe 2000 words. It got a little out of hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

A few minutes ago

She'd done it. She was in the waking world! She hadn't expected to manage that for so much longer than this. Sure it was following a summoning, but still. That counted, right? The Good Hunter jumped into the air, twisting and wriggling about in celebration. Or she tried to at least. She mostly just stood still (stood?), her arms dropping from their blocking position (arms, she had arms?) and swaying slightly.

There was a solidified collection of DREAMS/MEMORIES/LEGENDS in front of her, speaking to her. "…I am Lancer, and I'm gonna assume you are Saber. Shall we?" Only a tiny fragment of her focus was on this Lancer as she tried to figure out what it was. How did it have form? This wasn't the Dream or a dream, so concepts couldn't really do much on their own. It probably wanted a response though. The Good Hunter spoke: CURIOUSITY/WONDERING. MISS/INCOMPREHENSION/LACK OF ATTENTION. REPEAT/REDO/AGAIN WORDS/QUERY/QUESTION.

It shimmered and danced in her vision, weighted in place by the burden of centuries. It was bloodlust and feral joy in battle tempered by bonds of honor and loyalty. There was a humanoid form under or behind or on top, superimposed on the DREAMS/MEMORIES/LEGENDS in front of her. But she couldn't tell what it was, male or female, man or beast. It was armed, that much she could see, but that was decidedly unhelpful in specifics.

The crystallization didn't seem to respond to her query, but she heard a thump behind her. The Good Hunter tried to turn to look at the source of the sound, but she couldn't turn correctly. Her head flopped sideways before turning about 90 degrees and stopping, constrained by something. There was an odd crunching noise. She tried to keep going and her head fell all the way back. There was a boy behind her, fallen to his knees, his eyes open wide, staring at her, through her. Oh dear, the little human behind her didn't seem to take well to her VOICE/WORDS/COMMUNICATION.

This was… The Good Hunter tried to look down at herself but ended up with her head flipping all the way forward and impacting her chest. She bit her tongue. Tongue. Teeth. She had a body in the waking world again. A human body. What had this summoning done to her? She could still SEE/COMPREHEND/KNOW, but suddenly she felt claustrophobic, trapped, crushed down into this tiny mortal shell. Grand wings of ephemeral webs of flesh and delicate tendrils bound tightly in human meat. Her vision turned fuzzy and she tried to scream out, but all that came out was a quiet rasp. The Good Hunter was glory, she was might, she was victorious! And she couldn't move! Reality, reality, not Dream, was shifting ever so slightly around her. How was she supposed to do anything confined to this shell if she couldn't even make it move right? Was she to communicate like this, with small limited air vibrations shaped by bone and meat?

If the thing in front of her couldn't hear, and it was too much for the boy behind, that was all she was left with. Could she even do that? The Good Hunter would have shrieked in panic and fury if she could remember how in this fleshy shell. With her focus on the mouth of the body she was stuck in, the Good Hunter lost track of the arms. The longer of her two blades fell down, digging the tip into the dirt and bringing her arm with it. This was going to get old very quickly.

She opened the mouth of the vessel she was confined to for the moment and began to speak. All that came out was a harsh exhale and the clack of teeth. What? Try again. Coughing sounds, grunts. How was this supposed to work? Move the jaw and the lips and exhale. That wasn't it. It just sounded strangled, like when Violetta felt the need to choke a beast to death rather than just cutting it apart. The tongue kept falling out of the mouth when she closed the jaw, but she hadn't bitten it off yet. There was more than just the exhaling when making speech with noise.

There was a little thing in the throat, wasn't there? Even upon waking at the beginning of that bloody hunt without memory of who or what she was, before she was the Good Hunter, she still knew how to speak, how to move and walk and gesture. This was infuriating. Terrifying. Hum the little box in the throat, exhale, open the mouth, move the tongue and lips. Noise! Partial word! Success! The jaw closing sharply on the tongue partway through, not success! The jaw reflexively opened and the tongue pulled in in tandem with a sharp inhale. Had she damaged it?

And now the stupid body was starting to tip forward. The Good Hunter moved one leg forward to prevent a fall and tensed the muscles in the back to lean slightly in the opposite direction. The legs buckled a little and shook, but she was able to prevent complete collapse.

"…she can't even stand, let alone fight. Let's get this out of the way." The shiny thing (Lancer?) in front of her moved toward her suddenly, the spear in its… hands…? at the front of the charge. The Good Hunter clumsily knocked aside his strike, sidestepping to gain some distance. One of the muscles in the right leg didn't move as she expected it to and the leg remained straight on landing instead of flexing, causing the other to spasm and dropping her to the ground.

Oh this was embarrassing. The Good Hunter, ascended Great One, source of the Hunter's Dream, Liberator of Yharnam, tripping over her own feet. By the Good Blood this was pathetic.

The thing (person?) standing over her spoke. And this time he had her attention. "What the hell kind of Servant are you? Can't speak, can't even fight, tripping over yourself. Get up Saber, this is embarrassing." It really was. The thing held its spear upside down and drove it at her throat. Not acceptable. The Good Hunter managed to bring her blades up in an X, pushing the spear just far enough that in buried itself in the ground next to her, rather than her neck. Saber, was that supposed to be her? Then that made him Lancer?

If that was how it was going to be, she might as well abandon trying to use the meat to communicate. With more concentration that it should have taken, the Good Hunter vibrated the air directly. It started as a high shriek before she could bring it down to something more understandable. "Give. Me. A moment." That was pretty close, though there was still a bit of a static and warble in between and behind the words. "It's been… a long time… since I had a body like this, I cannot be blamed… for being a little unfamiliar." And wasn't that the truth. Spending her days drifting in the Dream, flitting behind the Moon, not able to leave yet for her youth as a Great One. But then she was summoned, here, into this fight. She'd certainly enjoy it more if she didn't feel so trapped, unable to actually use this new body correctly.

The Good Hunter lashed out in frustration at Lancer's wrists with the dagger in her left hand. He jumped back, pulling his weapon with him. She spoke again, the words surer this time as she clawed her way up from the ground, "If you will allow me a moment to reacquaint myself with my body, I'd be happy to fight you until one or both of us is dead." Her brows furrowed and she focused more on the thing with the spear. The many layers of DREAMS/MEMORIES/LEGENDS were still there, but if she twisted her perception in the right way it seemed to consolidate somewhat, revealing a humanoid shape of blue, a red spear in one hand. And why could she move the eyebrows on accident, but not the limbs on purpose?

The thing (Lancer, it was Lancer) gave off a sense of mild inquisitiveness. "You're being awfully reasonable about this."

"But of course. You want a good fight, as do I. I haven't had a chance to try to cut anyone down in a very long time." The Good Hunter smiled sadly, though she could tell that the expression wasn't quite what it was supposed to be. "I'm not sure how long exactly, but far too much time all the same."

A genuinely amused laugh came from the somewhat fuzzy blue thing. "I think I like you. Get used to your body again, then we'll both get a good fight out of it."

"Then I thank you." The Good Hunter stood slowly. She was doing better at getting the little meat bits to pull and extend in the right way to make her move, but it took more focus than she wanted. "I suppose I'm giving you a bit of an advantage here, showing off like this, but it's the quickest way I can think of." She extended one arm, grasping and flexing the fingers, trying to commit the motions to instinct rather than conscious thought. She extended one leg in front of her, balancing shakily on the other. Shortly she felt confident enough to begin going through the motions with her Rakuyo. Well, it had been Maria's Rakuyo, but it was hers now.

The dual blade trick weapon had been a favorite of hers ever since she had found it under the Fishing Hamlet in the Hunter's Nightmare. It could be two blades or one, much like the Blades of Mercy, but allowed much longer reach at the cost of slightly lowered speed. She'd hoped and tried to reproduce the flaming blood trick that Maria had used during their fight. It had hurt, but allowed great range, increased damage, and was possibly one of the most glorious things that the Good Hunter had been killed with over the course of the Hunt. And she still couldn't reproduce it. It might have been a quirk of Maria's blood that the Good Hunter could not reproduce no matter how hard she tried. She still remained disappointed. It might now be even further beyond her reach if the skill was tied to the blood. Or perhaps not. Paleblood could certainly do odd things, though combusting was not one of them. Maybe the Good Hunter could manage an arcane variation. It was no fire, but it would be incredibly satisfying. Not a thing to play with now though.

Regardless, the Good Hunter began to slide through the motions of a mock fight, struggling to keep the motions smooth. Combined, the Rakuyo allowed the dagger on the pommel to be used as a second unexpected attack or to stab with without returning the longer blade to a more ready position. As it was, the Good Hunter could barely avoid stabbing herself on a normal swing, let alone trying fancier tricks. She sighed internally, the body producing the noise as a raspy exhale.

She broke apart the blades, the dagger in her left hand and the saber in her right. Arcane forged steel swished through the air as the Good Hunter refamiliarized herself with the other form of her favored weapon. A slice with one blade, a stab with the other. Spin, move forward, ducking under an imagined guard. Repeatedly stab with both blades to get past a guard. Slash diagonally with both blades. Dodge and slash in the same motion. Familiar motions, familiar steps ingrained in her memory, but not in this body. Motions gradually smoothed out as her dance went on. Jittery swipes became crisp slashes, imprecise stabs became graceful and accurate.

She clipped the dagger back into the hilt of the larger blade before continuing. Her motions followed more conventional swordplay intermixed with pommel strikes that were stabs rather than blunt hits, as well as a little more care with the angles of the blade to avoid cutting her own wrist. The Good Hunter jumped forward, breaking the connection between the blades in the same motion, slashing downwards and across with both blades. One corner of the mouth twitched upwards. It was good to know that she could still manage that; it had taken much longer than she cared to admit to master that little trick, changing to the trick form of the Rakuyo while in motion rather than stepping back to do the same and breaking the flow of the battle.

Moonlight shown down as her dance slowed. The Good Hunter turned to Lancer, "I could probably do better, but I've kept you waiting long enough." Though the lips and mouth matched the words, she still had to move the air by thought rather than by voice.

Lancer grinned down at her from his lazy spot on the roof. "I think this is going to be fun." He hopped down from the roof and charged at her.

Lancer was fast. He was incredibly fast. Fast enough that the Good Hunter would have had difficulty in fighting him at the peak of her strength on the night of the long hunt. As it stood now, an inhuman Great One squeezed into a magically formed meat suit resembling her human body, she was barely able to prevent her immediate destruction, let alone counterattack. Stabs and swipes came ever closer to cutting her open, so it was only a short matter of time before she dodged just a little too slow or mistimed a block.

A stab from Lancer's spear cut the Good Hunter's neck. She could feel a trickle of blood begin to flow down.

Lancer jumped back a step. "What are you?"

The Good Hunter cocked her head in confusion. True she was something strange here, but what prompted this? A moonlit scent hit her nose, so she lifted a hand to the cut on her neck. Bringing it in front of her face, her curiosity was answered. White liquid from her neck trickled down the palm of her hand and down her wrist. Paleblood. That would certainly explain Lancer's surprise. A nostalgic smile flitted across her face. "Sometimes, when sanity is lost to the howling void, a final blow is struck. And things change a little more than you meant them too. But here I am, and there you are. If we both survive this, I would be happy to exchange tales of bloodshed the next time we try to kill each other," she replied. "My blood should have little bearing on this fight."

Lancer chuckled, "Does that even mean anything? I get the whole 'cryptic mystery person' act you've got going on, but damn. I think I'll hold you to those stories and that fight."

Lancer was fast. She knew that. And if she wasn't fast enough to counter Lancer, she would need to better predict his actions, to read him better. Or she could be faster. Reaching into her pocket, the Good Hunter pulled out an old cracked bone. Lancer darted forwards to stop her before she could use it, but the bone was crushed before he could reach.

The Good Hunter shot forward ash trailing in her wake. She moved half again as fast as before, not enough to match Lancer, but enough to close the gap. Moving under his attack, she swung her blades upwards. Lancer kicked off the ground, knocking the longer blade aside with the shaft of his spear and dodging the dagger through a twist of his torso.

Lancer flipped through the air and upon landing the fight joined again. Through the following clashes, Saber was able to leverage her increased speed to land a shallow slice across Lancer's ribs. At the scent of blood in the air she stopped dead, not even making an effort to stop Lancer's spear from piercing deeply into her shoulder.

"Oh…" The Good Hunter's eyes widened. How could she have forgotten? That smell, copper and iron, life itself and power. She'd missed it of course, drifting in the Dream didn't allow for much wholescale slaughter and she would never hurt her hunters, but that smell… "I'd almost forgotten the scent. He was right, the sweet blood does sing." She couldn't have stopped herself even if she wanted to. The Good Hunter lifted her dagger to her mouth and ran her tongue along the flat of the blade. It was rapture. Ambrosia. It was glorious, and she couldn't remember blood ever tasting that good.

Pupils dilating, Saber blinked rapidly. With the crunching of meat and bone echoing in her ears, Saber clenched her hand in front of her eyes. It felt right. This meat she was wearing was hers. She was the Good Hunter. Ascended Great One. But she had been human once, hunting beasts and monsters in the night. The blood was memory, it's wondrous scent still in her nostrils.

This was her body. Hers! She remembered how to move, no longer was every motion conscious, the meat dragged along for the ride; Saber thought and her body followed. Her SIGHT/COMPREHENSION/KNOWLEDGE remained, but it was overtaken by her human senses. The DREAMS/MEMORIES/LEGENDS that made up her opponent danced tantalizingly at the edge of her vision, but they no longer hid the crisp image of Lancer, clad in blue armor, red spear gripped tightly and embedded deeply in her shoulder. And Saber grinned, feral joy crossing her face.

Blood.

Saber spun away from Lancer in an attempt to force him into releasing his grip on his spear or to yank him closer to her if he didn't. Lancer chose the second option, pushing forward with the spin to maintain some control over the motion. He took a stab in the thigh for his trouble.

More blood.

The battle continued. Dashes of blood scattered across the courtyard, some only inches from where the boy lay halfway to the ground.

Blood.

Teeth bared in a manic grin, Saber clashed again and again with Lancer. While not quite as feral, the expression on Lancer's face nearly matched Saber's.

BLOOD!

Lancer's spear cut again into the same wounded shoulder as before. It just drove Saber forward, landing multiple deep cuts on Lancer. With every blow upon Lancer, with every splash of his blood across her body, her wounds closed a fraction, allowing her to fight on. With every blow he landed, more wounds opened.

Give me. MORE BLOOD!

Red and white scattered around the compound, some intermingling to form a filthy pink. Their bloody vicious battle could very well have continued for hours, but Lancer jumped back to the far side of the courtyard, the complete opposite of the block Saber was expecting, leaving her off balance, blades whooshing through the air where Lancer should have been. She turned around, ready to reengage.

"Hell of a fight, Saber. Unfortunately, my Master requires me to leave. I was only supposed to be scouting for other Masters and their Servants, not fighting them." He leaned his spear against his shoulder and gestured at the mess they had made. What had once been a neat and cared for garden and courtyard was mostly gone. Great craters and gashes covered the area, puddles of mixed pink blood filling many of them and scattered most everywhere else. While they had mostly avoided damaging the house, many windows were broken and there were still the occasional blood streak on the walls. "This is rather pushing past the limits of those orders."

Saber looked shocked. "We're done? Already? But…" Her bloodlust roared in her ears, all the more potent for its previous absence.

"I'm afraid so."

The roaring subsided a little as she had an idea. A mischievous and hungry smirk crept onto Saber's face. "Later tonight, I'll be hunting through the outskirts of the big city if you want to 'bump into' me."

"I think I like you Saber. I look forward to seeing more of you in the war. Later." Lancer leapt into the night.

Saber looked after him. He was certainly interesting. She couldn't recall seeing a plainly designed spear like his before. There was certainly a hateful and angry feel about it, but physically it was just a spear. She'd seen Saw-Spear users and wielders of the Rifle Spear, but both of those were trick weapons, not simply a spear. And yet somehow, he made more use of that one weapon form that most she had fought made of two. "You don't run into too many like that," Saber sighed looking after her new favorite foe.

She turned around to look at her erstwhile summoner. "And I'm pretty sure you're the one who dragged me to this waking world. I am SELF/HUNTER/GREAT ONE." At the last word, she stopped using the air vibrations required to communicate using her limited flesh. Once she figured out the trick, it wasn't as bad as she had thought, but it was still so limited, so Saber returned directly using concepts to express who she was. Mere words wouldn't be nearly enough. Her summoner fell backwards onto the ground, eyes bulging. Oh dear. Then the boy started to slowly writhe on the ground, eyes widening further, making small choking noises as he tried to escape something only he could see.

"Up you get." Saber gently slapped the boy across the face, then grabbed his forearm and dragged him from his prone position, setting him on his feet. "I don't think that's going to work. Why doesn't… No matter." Saber clutched her left hand to her chest, her right extended outward to her side. She bowed forward slightly. "The Lancer called me Saber," she started, then under her breath. "…which seems to work better than SELF/HUNTER/GREAT ONE does for you." The boy staggered again at her NAME/IDENTIFICATION/TRUTH. Again? I wouldn't have expected him to have been able to hear me… "What do I call you, little summoner?"

The boy seemed to gain focus at that. "Forgive me." He bowed hastily. "I am Emiya Shirou. What are you? Who was he? What's going on? And why aren't I dead?"

Saber hmmm'd. "You aren't ready for my name yet little summoner. My existence is strange, and that twisted nature carries on my name, spoken in tongues and concepts you aren't meant to know." But her summoner seemed strong of will, he'd only gone into spasms rather than completely insane. Which she probably should have considered before speaking it. "Though if you want enough Insight to know my name and what I am, continue on this path. I have no doubt you will reach it well enough. You have the makings of a strong Hunter."

As Saber smiled somewhat fondly at her summoner (Shirou, but that didn't matter, he was her summoner, and that was why he was relevant. Oh, he might be interesting, but he'd have to earn it), she felt a chime, a ringing, the sound of two crystals rubbing against each other tingling up her spine. It felt… somewhat like Lancer. She straightened her back, turning her head to look in the direction of the not-sound. Which resulted in staring straight at a wall, but that wasn't important.

"There's something similar to that Lancer coming this way. I'll take care of it so we can continue our conversation." Saber leapt lightly onto the roof, trying to get a closer read on the target. How wonderful, two fights against worthy prey in one night. That was rare, the Great Hunt notwithstanding. Her joy burst forth from her mouth, the flesh making the sound, not her mind. It was distorted, a rough wet cackle of mirth from an inhuman source robed in human flesh. Blood soaked garments whipped behind her as she jumped closer to get into range of the new targets.

Ideally, she'd have been more careful fighting Lancer, but the sorry state of her body, a fitful longing for combat, and the blood lusting insanity had interfered with her usual care in tackling unknown targets. Calmer now, Saber had a chance to consider how she would actually want to engage this new foe. And why was she thinking of herself as "Saber" now, rather than as a hunter or Great One or SELF/HUNTER/GREAT ONE? How long had that been going on? A point to consider later; existential thoughts were better pondered once everything else was a corpse so as to avoid becoming one herself. Which admittedly rarely lasted long, but it was the principle of the thing. Though… there weren't any lanterns around. And she was a Great One. A Great One in a magically formed body which resembled her original one. And Great Ones didn't die as humanity understood it. Would the lack of death offered by the Dream even apply to her anymore?

As things currently stood, Saber didn't have her usual safety net in the Lanterns. Even if she failed spectacularly, she could always try again; this time, not so much. Maybe she'd revive in the Dream, maybe she could pull herself back here. Or maybe she'd be a more dead than usual, so she would have to be more careful. Oil urns and molotovs, blue elixir, the Executioners Glove, all were valid options. But none really possessed range. With these powerful DREAMS/MEMORIES/LEGENDS running around, it was unlikely she'd be able to get close enough to use a lot of her mid-ranged stuff easily. The Piercing Rifle was an option, but hardly sporting. And oddly enough for a hunter, she wasn't overly fond of guns. After all, there's never a need to reload a sword. Though there was…

Saber chuckled to herself. She didn't use Simon's Bow Blade much. It was big and it was powerful, but Saber much preferred being close enough to be showered in the blood of her enemies. A bit more cathartic. But while it wasn't her preference for a weapon, she couldn't deny that it was a very graceful and powerful sword. With a flick of her wrist, Saber reached behind her into that odd pocket of dream that held her weaponry and pulled out a long blade with a single wave to it. And more importantly for the current situation… She passed the sword to her other hand. Through a series of mechanisms Saber was still not clear on, the blade split lengthwise to become the elegant bend of a metal bow. The hilt and guard expanded to become the grip, and a quicksilver bullet took the form of a brutal metal arrow in her right hand.

Hopping to the next roof, Saber gazed ahead. The ringing was coming closer, shortly to turn a corner of an intersection. She drew her bow and pulled the quicksilver arrow back, bladed bow arms protesting at the tension but performing dutifully. Sighting along the arrow, Saber waited. She wasn't expecting to actually kill her new foe with this shot, but it would give her the opening move.

The ringing turned the corner. There were two figures approaching, first was a girl in a red coat with a white-haired man running beside… who was also in a red coat. He was the one like Lancer, a crystallization of myth, history, and memory, but there was something more tangible about this one, more cohesive somehow. A quick glance at the girl revealed something odd inside her body, something Saber would have to look into, but later, once they were both dead. Or allies. That happened sometimes.

The white-haired man looked up just in time to pull two swords from nowhere in an attempt to block the arrow. Dust and debris filled the air from the impact. Saber slowly drew back another arrow in preparation for counter attack. The dust slowly settled, and Saber heard shouting.

"...plan? You're an Archer who uses swords! What's the point of summoning Archer if they're just going to engage in close combat? Couldn't you have shot that down before it hit us? Or I don't know, dodged it? Pulled me to the side? Why block it with swords?"

"Not enough time. Hadn't you said yourself that you had intended to summon Saber, Master? Doesn't that make me almost the same?"

"It doesn't work like that! A Saber is a Saber, and an Archer is an Archer. Additional skills are helpful, but not the point."

"Maybe we should save this for later? Our foe approaches."

The girl was certainly spirited. Had she summoned the white-haired man? As she could see them clearly now, and they could see her, Saber wondered if perhaps she should introduce herself.

Saber pulled the tail of her coat out and bent her knees in a slightly mocking curtsy. "I am Saber. My other opponent was nice enough to tell me who he was before we fought, will you do the same?"

The white-haired man raised an eyebrow. "You are very polite. I don't -"

He was cut off by the girl behind him. "Saber? She's Saber? I get an Archer that uses swords and Saber uses a bow?! How does that even make sense?" She dragged a hand down her face. "Fine. Fine." She addressed Saber. "He's Archer, I'm his master. Now go get her Archer."

End Chapter


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

As Tohsaka Rin ran down the street to Emiya Shirou's house, she lamented the circumstances which seemed to have conspired against her. She had not been having the best week. And certainly not the best start for a secret war in which she had a better than not chance of dying in the process. The first problem was the Grail War itself: it was starting fifty years ahead of schedule, which led to Rin needing to make a flurry of preparations so that she could win and uphold her family pride. That was stressful, but should have been fine.

The second problem was potentially caused by magic, but was mundane in nature. Rin had gotten up far too early because all of the clocks in her house were an hour ahead. That was unpleasant but short nights were a regular thing. She was at school by the time she had realized, then by the time she returned home, she had forgotten again. Which led to the next big mark against her week.

Her summoning was perfect. The circle was pristine, her incantation precise in timing and pronunciation. Except, of course, for the timing of the ritual itself. It should have been two o'clock. But, having forgotten to fix her clocks, her ritual occurred at one instead. It gave her Archer. He was powerful, Rin had to admit. He was skilled, as evidenced by his fight against Lancer. He was also an incredible pain to deal with on just about every level. Very little happened without some kind of commentary, some caustic remark, some smart dialogue. But when he was serious, Archer was very good at what he did. Rin really didn't know how to feel about him.

Then Lancer. Damn him. And damn Shirou for being in the wrong place at the wrong time around the wrong people. First contact with an enemy Servant could have been more ideal, in location, in enemy, in information. But the empty school with a seemingly chivalrous enemy was something she wouldn't have complained about. Or it wouldn't have been, if the school was actually empty. By the time she and Archer were able to get to the victim, it was almost too late for Emiya. If only it had been anyone else or just a little bit later, to put him past her ability to heal, she could have passed by, called it a terrible loss from the Grail War. But it was Emiya. And she could help him.

Now she was down all the prana stored in her father's gem and running to Emiya's house anyway to ensure that that expenditure wasn't for nothing. Thus far, there had been no trouble on the roads, no Servants, no people even… It might have been a coincidence, but it still seemed strange. As Rin was considering that, she felt a twinge in the corner of her vision. Her face scrunched up as she wondered where that had come from. It was very much like the pain of looking into a bright light, but there was little light around and it was late. Rin's thoughts would have continued on that path if something more pressing hadn't suddenly taken her full attention.

Archer jumped in front of her and Rin collided with his back, falling to the ground. Before she could land, both of Archer's swords were drawn to cut down a high-speed metal object traveling right at her chest. As it was deflected, Rin crashed into the pavement. What was that? Where had it come from? She hadn't heard anything at all, felt no magic, no sound, nothing.

Archer glanced quickly at her over his shoulder. "Wait, Master. Something's near. Do you have a plan?"

Rin's frustrations from the day combined with being knocked down boiled over. "My plan? What about your plan? You're an Archer who uses swords! What's the point of summoning Archer if they're just going to engage in close combat? Couldn't you have shot that down before it hit us? Or I don't know, dodged it? Pulled me to the side? Why block it with swords?"

"Not enough time." Archer shifted, dual blades still held in front of him, guarding. "Hadn't you said yourself that you had intended to summon Saber, Master? Doesn't that make me almost the same?"

"It doesn't work like that!" Rin growled at him. "A Saber is a Saber, and an Archer is an Archer. Additional skills are helpful, but not the point."

"Maybe we should save this for later? Our foe approaches."

Rin snapped her head around to where Archer was indicating. She needed to calm down, she'd be no use all like this.

A woman stood on a rooftop looking down at them. Or more accurately, a female Servant. Her well-made clothing was covered in tears and cuts, exposing skin and numerous wounds weeping some kind of whiteish fluid. The Servant curtsied to them, weapons stowed away and long-coat pulled to the side.

"I am Saber. My other opponent was nice enough to tell me who he was before we fought, will you do the same?"

This was Saber.

Archer looked mildly amused. "You are very polite. I don't-"

Rin cut him off, "Saber? She's Saber? I get an Archer that uses swords and Saber uses a bow?! How does that even make sense?" She dragged a hand down her face. This wasn't fair. This wasn't right. What was the point of having classes if the Servants weren't going to use their relevant skills? If she were in a more charitable mood, Rin would have acknowledged that it was a valid and clever strategy for misleading the enemy. Right now, she was frustrated and struck by the injustice of it all. "Fine. Fine." She addressed Saber. "He's Archer, I'm his master." Then to her Servant, "Now go get her Archer."

Archer nodded and he ran towards Saber.

As Archer started to move towards her, Saber released her arrow. A fully drawn attack from the Bow Blade was incredibly powerful, but easily dodged by someone with the skills her foes had demonstrated tonight. So instead she aimed at Archer's master just a little behind him. As expected, Archer moved to defend her. Saber's next shots were released immediately with minimal power to hem Archer in towards the first shot and to keep his distance. He managed to deflect the powerful first shot away from his master, but not entirely from himself. The arrow tore a furrow through the top of his shoulder and another two weaker shots impacted his legs before fading away.

The echoes of her faded bloodlust burst back to life as the scent of free flowing blood once again hit her nose. Saber licked her lips and tried to focus back on the battle for the time being. Saber imagined that Archer knew that if he was to remain entirely on the defensive he would lose. As such, he would have to change something about their current circumstances in order to prevent his own or his master's end. As someone called "Archer" and as someone who seemed to possess a similar existence to Lancer, he should be able to shoot down all the arrows she was sending in his direction. Saber was uncertain as to why he would not. He should be able to do so while preventing his master from coming to harm, while occasionally counterattacking. He seemed to currently have the skill with his blades to hold back her own attacks, but in order to strike at her with blades, he would need to close the distance.

Instead, Archer threw the black blade in one hand at Saber. She avoided the throw by leaning to the side. She kept her focus on Archer expecting a trap. There was always a trick, always something else, a distraction to make an opening, but he just kept deflecting arrows with both blades that might hit his master or that he couldn't dodge. Saber continued firing on them as she tried to figure out what struck her as wrong about her target. Both blades, that wasn't right… He'd thrown the black one, but it was back in his hand now and she'd never seen it return. What was she missing? The steel digging into her side revealed that to her. Her hasty dodge left her with a shallow gash and threw her off the roof towards Archer.

Twisting in midair to get her feet below herself, Saber grinned. That was it, the twist she was expecting. He had more blades hidden somewhere, allowing him to use them as projectiles and melee weapons. While she was watching him to see what he would do, he'd already done it with the first blade flying at her from behind. It was a good trick. A weapon that would curve back around and wouldn't be expected, leaving the opponent thinking they had the advantage while he was supposedly down a blade. Maybe Archer didn't think it through quite that much since he'd pulled his extra blade out so quickly, though it might have been needed to keep up with her attacks. Saber fired one more shot at Archer then ran at him. A flick of her wrist transformed the bow back into a blade in her right hand and she swung, aiming for an opening at his side.

Archer caught the curve of her blade on one of his and cut back with the other. His wounded shoulder slowed the attack slightly, but enough. Saber dodged forward and to the side, hoping to move past his guard. This must be what it was like to fight her with the Rakuyo or Eileen with her Blade of Mercy, each blocked attack still left an opening for the other blade. Saber hadn't the greatest amount of experience with skilled foes using multiple weapons. Usually they were madmen with two hand scythes or lots of people with single weapons. She might need to swap to something else to counter Archers dual blades with her own but she would need to get some space for that.

Saber pressed the fight to force Archer back and give her some room to pull out other weapons. Archer moved to press back. Halfway through the motion to contact, she heard her summoner's voice.

"Saber, stop!"

There was a pressure that rippled through the world. An inviolable order that could not be refused, and Saber stopped moving. Her swing paused and she didn't move from the path of the incoming sword. She couldn't really have dodged the blade from this Archer that was now stuck in her stomach anyway, it was a tricky hidden blow from the side that she'd only seen at the last moment, but to not even be able to try was irritating.

Saber looked back at her little summoner, body otherwise still. "There was no need to do that. I'd probably have stopped if you asked."

There was a look of horror on his face. "Saber…"

Saber shrugged as much as she could. "It's not likely to be a major problem, but I really don't like being forced into things. So don't do that again. I'll help you, fight for you, maybe even die for you, but please don't make me do it. I'd rather be your ally than your slave, and if you try to make me your slave, I'll kill you." Her face split into a grin stretching literally from ear to ear, flesh stretching and teeth pointed. "Are we good?" Her summoner looked even more horrified than before.

Shirou blinked and her mouth was still grinning, but not past the normal bounds of human anatomy. "Of course we're good," he said. "That isn't what I meant! I got you injured."

"What, this?" She stepped back with a squelch. White blood dripped down her front. "Don't worry about it. I'll be fine." She looked down at the mess. "Though I should probably get this taken care of before I track blood everywhere."

Archer raised his eyebrows.

"You're sure?" Her summoner looked at her with both fists clenched at his sides. "I don't want you getting hurt for me."

Saber chuckled. It was a cleaner sound than it had been before, though still more guttural than a laugh should be. She pulled out a blood vial and stabbed it into her leg. Fresh blood darted through her body, forcing a remembrance of a functioning state. It healed her as it should, but it burned, both in the injection site and the injuries themselves. Her numerous cuts and gashes, the deep stab in her stomach, began to heal, red tendrils of blood threading across the open wounds and knitting them together, stinging and burning as it did so. Why did the blood vials hurt her? It never had before. As the raw wounds faded first to scabs, then vibrant red scar tissue, then to unmarred flesh, the pain radiating out from the former locations of the wounds slowly fading from the outside in.

Saber looked at the empty vial in her hand and shuddered. What was that? She shook her head slowly. Just another thing to figure out when she had the time.

"Like I said, nothing to worry about."

At this point, Archer's master seemed to have finally gotten past her shock. She cried out, "Emiya? Why are you a master?"

Her summoner turned to the girl and raised one hand as if to ask a question, before moving it in a short arc through the air as greeting. "Hi, Tohsaka-san. What's going on with all this?"

The girl, apparently "Tohsaka-san" tried to look composed but gave up and sighed. "Let's go somewhere a bit less open. Take us to your house."

As Saber followed after her summoner and the girl, she looked down at her shredded clothing and shook her head. This always happened in her fights, blood everywhere and clothing ruined. Thank the Cosmos for whatever it was that the Dream did to fix her clothing. For the moment though, she swapped out her tattered clothing into the little pocket of dream adjacent to the one she kept her weapons in, simultaneously pulling out cleaner and less shredded clothing. Looking down at herself, Saber saw the set she had worn when she first woke up in Yharnam. Neat leather shoes on her feet, dark grey pants with suspenders hanging down, white shirt, and reddish-brown vest. Not much for protection, but it was comfortable.

Together they entered her summoner's house.

Rin looked at Shirou's courtyard. "This is a disaster."

"Yes. I couldn't exactly do much about it though."

"I wasn't talking about the courtyard."

"Oh."

Rin sighed. "At least fix the windows. We can figure out how to deal with all the blood later." Rin looked contemplative. "It's odd though, Servants are spirits. They can bleed and be wounded, but I wouldn't expect the blood to stick around."

Shirou shrugged. "I wouldn't know about the blood thing." He looked sheepish. "And I can't do that."

"Do what?"

"Fix the windows. I never learned how to do that."

Rin could feel her blood pressure rising. She tried to remain calm. "So you've joined a massive battle that will likely result in most of its participants dead, and you don't even know how to do a basic repair spell."

Shirou shook his head.

Rin sighed again. "Then I'll do this for you. Once."

She gestured and muttered under her breath. The glass began to rise up from where it lay, tinkling shards reflecting the pale moonlight, streaming towards the window panes, large shards and tiny dust alike.

They had barely reached the pane where it should have been before Saber burst from the door, several strands of hair out of control across her face. Rin dropped the spell and took a ready stance, glass shattering again onto the wooden floor. "What's going on? What's wrong?"

Saber shook her head. "Nothing's wrong. What were you doing? Show me."

"I was fixing the windows… Why were you running here?"

"With your magic?" Saber looked excited.

"Yes…? We don't have the time or resources to fix this normally."

"So show me."

Rin looked as Saber oddly, then raised her hand and repeated her words. Saber watched with rapt attention.

Saber focused her vision to see past the membrane of the normality around her into the beginning layers of Cosmos lain gently through the world. There were odd things throughout the girl's body. As she spoke and the glass returned to its proper undamaged position, arcane power flickered through those nodes.

They were strange. They seemed familiar but malformed somehow, energy flickering and moving in strange roundabout ways rather than the clear flow of deep water that Saber normally associated with arcane power.

Saber continued staring at Tohsaka-san as she finished her spell. The girl put her hands on her hips and glared. "If you're done tearing through the house and disrupting my spells, can we sit down so I can explain this whole thing to your Master?"

Saber blinked. "Oh. Yes, let's do that."

Rin turned to Shirou. "Lead the way." Shirou nodded and gestured for them to follow him. Rin turned to Saber, one eyebrow raised, as they walked. "New outfit?"

Saber nodded. "The old one was somewhat damaged."

Rin sat down at the table in Shirou's kitchen. "Since I owe you for calling off your Servant. I'll explain what you've found yourself caught up in."

Saber glanced at the girl, then her summoner, then the table. She could have sat at the table, but why on earth was there a table that required sitting on the ground?

The girl started talking, and Saber listened, lounging against the wall. A war between seven mages and their summoned Servants, each of a different class. From the sounds of it, she might have fit for any of the seven classes, Saber, Berserker, Lancer, Caster, Archer, probably not Assassin or Rider. She couldn't recall ever riding anything, unless jumping on something from above to hit it harder with an axe counted, or that carriage with those dead horses Annalise made her ride. Assassin… She might be able to pull off Assassin, though it would be copious and clever use of her tools and elixirs rather than any particular personal skill.

Glancing up, Saber noticed Archer staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. She stared right back at him. He was odd. He had the same chiming ring to his existence that Lancer did, but he seemed somehow more solid, more real. Not that Lancer seemed to be not real, the multiple stab wound he had given her would attest to that. So what was different?

Rin kept talking, and Saber kept listening. At the end of the war, an unlimited wish, granted by the Holy Grail, which seemed to be some kind of cup. Even in a Dream far removed from her own, those damned chalices appeared again. Great power and secrets hidden. Well. Saber wouldn't mind the challenge given here. And besides, she was no longer some new hunter barely able to hold her Saw Cleaver.

Saber considered what she was hearing with one part of her attention as she poked her flesh with the delicately curved throwing dagger in her hand. The other part was focused on where exactly she was within this meat. It was still definitely a puppet of flesh that she controlled, but it felt like her own body. However, she could still feel her true self buried deep inside. But where? Her blood was pale, which seemed to suggest that the body was not what it was intended to be, given she hadn't had Paleblood until she became a Great One. But as far as she could tell, her flesh was just flesh, no hidden Great One within. When she had time later, that would be something she would need to figure out. As much as she enjoyed the conflict, being stuck like this and unable to find herself was unacceptable.

The explanation lulled, a quizzical expression crossed Rin's face and she turned to Saber. "Why haven't you explained any of this to your Master? If your Master is as inept as yours, I'd think that would be the first thing you'd do."

Saber looked at the girl and shook her head. "I didn't know any of this."

Rin stared blankly at Saber.

"I just followed the…" She struggled to find a way of phrasing it using normal human words to avoid melting this girls mind. "…pull… call? of the summoning and fought off the man trying to kill me. I knew nothing of the classes, or this Holy Grail, or some limitless wish."

"But…" Rin looked completely lost. "How can you not know? That's one of the first things the Grail does, it gives the Servants a basic knowledge of the time and place they're in. If you don't know anything about the Grail War, why are you calling yourself Saber?"

Saber grinned. There were too many teeth. "Because my summoner went into spasms when I told him my name and Lancer called me Saber. It was good enough placeholder for me."

Rin looked like she wanted to keep going, but knew it would be a line of questioning that could not possibly end well. She kept going anyway. "Do I want to know why your name made him go into spasms?"

Saber considered. "My existence is a little weird. My name encapsulates that, and to properly speak my name requires utterances that the human mind is not well equipped for. I'm honestly amazed that he only had seizures, I would have expected death or complete insanity."

"Then why did you say your name?" Rin burst out.

"I didn't think of it." Saber shrugged. "I don't get to talk to people much."

"Saber," Shirou spoke up leaving Rin gaping in the background. "Could I really have gone insane or died?"

"Oh yes," Saber responded cheerfully. "There are, or were, I suppose, a great many madmen who were what remained of those sought the kind of things humanity can't really process properly. Phenomenal cosmic power, eternal life, ascension to a higher existence, knowledge of the true nature of the Cosmos. That kind of thing. I killed most of them. They were terrible conversationalists, lots of shouting and stabbing and trying to kill me with arcane power. It rubbed off a little as time went on, I think."

"But don't worry about that. We'll kill a few guys, get horribly injured, come back for more, get injured again, kill some more people and win the Grail. You summoned me and I answered. I'll admit it was mostly curiosity. I was never very good at avoiding potential danger, just at minimizing the chances of dismemberment."

Silence fell upon the room. No one really knew how to respond, and Saber was content to wait.

Rin broke the silence. "Well… then… Well. You need to go get registered for the War. I'll take you, and after that, tomorrow we'll be enemies again."

Shirou looked confused. "What do you mean we'll be enemies?"

"Because we are on opposing sides of a war! At the end of this, the both of us can't be standing. It's better to cut this off before you get any foolish ideas in your head."

"If you say so Tohsaka-san."

Saber interjected, "Before we go, or after, it doesn't really matter, can I look inside you?"

Rin jumped back, or tried to, from her sitting position. It left her lying halfway on the ground with one arm propping her up, the other held protectively in front of her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Saber tilted her head at Rin's outburst. "You've got those funny little things inside of you that glow when you use magic. I got a bit of a look when you were fixing the window, but I wanted a closer look."

Rin started off looking concerned by Saber's interest, but by the end of it, she was fascinated. "Are you telling me you can see magic circuits?"

"If that's what you call those little things scattered inside you and focused on your arm, yes."

"Shirou, I've changed my mind. We're going to be allies now. I'll need access to your Servant for a few tests."

Shirou looked confused. "I… suppose that would be alright..."

"No, you don't understand Shirou, this is amazing!" Rin was leaning forward in her excitement. "We can't see Magic Circuits without specialized and painful rituals. Can you imagine how much we could learn if…"

Saber slipped away while her summoner and the girl were otherwise engaged. Only Archer noticed her go.

Saber smiled. Now for something a little different. Well, completely different. She'd never created a lantern before, only lit them, and that was honestly mostly the work of the Little Ones. Even if she wasn't certain it would revive her, she should be able to figure it out as she went along, and it would be a reassuring safety net. Did she actually need it? Who knew? But more preparation was better than less.

She started by attempting to reach into the swirling Cosmos between Dreams but was unable. Was it her own inability or this damned human form? How else to try this? Closing her eyes, Saber looked down into herself, trying to focus past the meat into the seat of where she could sense her power. Maybe if she could find it, she could branch out… Oh, there she was. She was only underneath the meat in a metaphorical sense, which would be why she couldn't find the rest of herself before. Then, looking closer between the two, her body and her SELF, she found an odd trickle, a memory, a fragment. A piece of crystalized legend. That was the same kind of thing as Lancer, the same kind of thing as Archer. Why was something like that inside her?

She poked at it and got a sense of pale purple soothing light. Little Ones swaying in wait, eager to ferry her on. The sweet calm of the Hunter's Dream. It felt like a piece of herself that she had lost, even though she'd never had it before. Well, what was a strange and unknown thing there for but to use? Saber reached out and grabbed it.

Her awareness rushed back to her body and she knew what to do. Saber reached out as if to touch something at waist height. Unseen to any with too few eyes, a tiny gap split open to let the Cosmos trickle in. Beneath her outstretched hand, the familiar purple light bloomed and the lantern shimmered into existence, shaking off the dust of nothingness. But no Little Ones. Was this too far? As far as she knew, the Little Ones never went far from the Dream. Perhaps they would come if she called.

Saber knelt on one knee on the bloody ground. Reaching out in front of her, she began to speak, but it was more than that. She called out in inhuman words, a cry, a croon, a request, a song. Won't you come and help me please? Her words rose and fell, sounds that could not be fully heard by human ears and understood not at all. Inside Rin and Shirou shivered. Archer glanced around, feeling certain there was something of concern nearby, something that might bite him from behind.

At the end of Saber's cry… a sense of faint curiosity on the other side.

"Come here, Little Ones. I would very much like to speak with you." The curiosity morphed into cheerful delight and a small malformed and emaciated baby popped up beneath Saber's hand. "Just the one of you…?" Then more heads popped up, for a total of five, all moving in macabre cheer. Saber smiled. "I spoke too soon."

"I need a favor."

Curiosity again.

"This place is a mess and it's my fault. Could you gather together what blood you can from here into vials and clean the rest?" The Little Ones looked reluctant.

"I'll get you new hats…" Saber sing-songed.

The reluctance quickly turned to excitement. One of the Little Ones glared at her. Saber smiled ever so slightly. "Fine. It was mean of me to make you wear a ribbon. I am sorry. You did look adorable though."

The glare intensified.

"What do you want for a hat?"

A considering look.

"I don't see why I can't find you something green. And I won't bring you a ribbon." Saber promised.

The Little Ones cheered and got to work.

Saber smiled and turned back to the house.

"Saber, where did you go?" Shirou asked.

"I went to look at the courtyard to see how big a mess it was. It might take a bit, but we should be able to take care of it." Saber rubbed her hands together. "Let's go make this war official." As seemed to be becoming the norm, her smile scared Shirou a little bit.

End Chapter

A/N:

Sorry for the delay, works been really busy, which is where I do most of my writing when I have nothing else going on. Also, Horizon: Zero Dawn. The design in that game is gorgeous.

According to spell-check, "sing-songed" should be "sing-sponged." Somehow that doesn't carry the same kind of feel to me. Also, dialogue is hard.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Archer contemplated Saber, watching her braid sway back and forth across her back, the long mantle of her leather duster moving in time as she walked ahead of him. She was not who she should have been. Where was Arturia? Aside from his desperate desire to kill his past self, the only other goal he had was an ever so slight hope to see her again, his Saber. One of the few good things to come of the Holy Grail War. But she wasn't here.

Almost as important, where was Avalon? He directed his attention to Shirou, walking calmly beside the wrong Saber. In his life it had been within him, the method by which his father had saved his life. He expected to feel it at least faintly from within his younger self, but there was nothing he could sense. Even inactive, there should have been something. Or had been so long that he no longer could remember what Avalon's presence felt like? That couldn't possibly be right, he had held it inside him for years, he had traced Avalon. He knew it better than he knew his own flesh and bone; there could be no forgetting.

Archer returned his thoughts to Saber. She was a mystery. She claimed that knowledge of her name would drive men mad. What did that even mean? There were certainly types of beings he was aware of that could cause that sort of effect, but how many of them could possibly be summoned by the Grail as Heroic Spirits? How many of them were even vaguely humanoid?

Then there was that bizarre transforming bow. His lips twitched, a grin threatening to break through as he thought about Rin's sheer outrage at Saber attacking them with a bow. It made the deep furrow in his shoulder and the shallow punctures in his legs entirely worth it. The bow blade possessed an intricate yet extraordinarily sturdy mechanism for the method of its transformation. He'd never seen it's like before. It was a… copy? of a weapon wielded by a man who always walked behind, in the dark, unseen, lost to someplace unclear. Archer wasn't too sure of the Bow Blade's status as a copy though. It was somehow the same weapon wielded by the man, claimed by Saber after his death. But if he had still been alive and had his blade, Archer was certain Saber would still have had hers. How utterly strange.

Saber darted back and forth across the road, looking at everything, around every corner, looking for all the world like she was trying to avoid missing a single thing. "Hello there, you're quite lovely, and you don't want to eat me, no you don't." Saber paused her energetic rush to coo at a raven sitting on a tree branch. He exchanged glances with Rin.

Saber made him feel strange. Every time she moved, he had to stop himself from reaching for his bow. She'd done something in the house that put him even more on edge, the taste of static on his tongue, the sound of something silent creeping up behind him. That feeling in a dark room, knowing beyond a doubt that there was nothing there, yet just as certain that something was breathing beyond the limits of sight. The tingle of wrongness, the way she moved, somehow too stiff and jerky like a puppet yanked around on strings, but at the same time flickering between feral grace and emotionless fluidity in her actions.

Flickers of battles long past danced across Archer's mind and he grimaced. Mere ghosts of memory. She reminded him of things he had cut down in his capacity as a Counter Guardian. Things that he couldn't actually remember, just that he'd fought and killed them. Or maybe just driven away, he couldn't remember details, merely a vague feeling of intense wrongness. And a certainty that he couldn't know more. Not something hidden behind conspiracy, telling him he shouldn't know more, but something he was incapable of knowing and the sense that it was better that way.

Archer felt like he was supposed to kill her, a required action, an innate absolute in existence. Something like her, whatever she was, needed to be gone, but there were no orders for the Counter Guardian, Heroic Spirit EMIYA to cut her down and he wasn't sure what to do. Archer watched and waited, trying to figure her out. He would see what she would reveal, and act when necessary.

While Archer was busy trying to understand Saber, she was busy doing the same to everyone and everything around her, though with a great deal more excitement. This world was so strange! Instead of cobble on the street, there were lots of small rocks held together in some kind of black resin. There were so many houses, all short and pale, against Yharnam's tall and dark. So different and new! None of the animals had tried to eat her yet.

It was beautiful here. Yharnam had beauty too, but it was a dark and gothic beauty, grand architecture and achievements built and sustained by blood and pain, hidden secrets and knowledge underneath.

And the mages with her! They channeled the power of the Cosmos, but they did it themselves. It was impossible to control the Cosmos without being warped by it, even the small trickle enough for the hunt, which was why the various hunters of Yharnam used tools to do that for them. The augers of Great Ones, the Holy Moonlight Sword, though that one seemed to have come back to bite Ludwig, arcane blood gens, and other tools were available if one could but learn. Learning to use the tools was difficult, but manageable, if one had the aptitude and strength of mind. The Good Hunter and Rom were of the few able to control the Cosmos to some extent, but there was little enough humanity left in them to be warped.

She still wanted to figure out what the small nodes, those little organs, within and throughout their bodies were that allowed them to do so. The girl in red had promised her a look if Saber would help with her research.

Saber's eyes flickered from Archer's Master to her summoner and back again. Even when not actively using her power, the girl's nodes, what she had called magic circuits, had tiny flickers of the Cosmos drifting lazily within. When activated, the Cosmos moved in fits and starts, forced through the circuits with enough pressure to alter reality. She stared at her summoner, his hands in his pockets. His circuits, on the other hand, were still. They were there, still clearly in evidence, the twisted balls of flesh cushioned between muscles and bone, but nothing moved within, no flickers of light or Truth. How then had he summoned her if he had so little power that she couldn't see it? While he hadn't pulled her from her place in the Dream, she followed his call, but to get the call to her would require immense power. Was that a part of the Grail ritual? If the summoner had the knowledge and enough power to activate the ritual, it would provide sufficient power to summon? Some freak convergence of stars and moon and cosmos to allow a frail request to make its way to her?

Shirou watched Saber as they walked. She seemed… excited in that wrong way of hers, where emotions were expressed half a second later or earlier than they should be and facial muscles seemed to never quite reach their goal, or overcompensated and went too far. It seemed a little better than after she had fought Lancer, but there was still something that seemed wrong about her. Just before leaving, she had changed clothing into a long and sturdy looking coat with a high collar, keeping the same tricorn hat with its single white feather on her head. Saber's face had gone blank, unfocused, and then with a sort of odd shimmer, the vest and suspenders were gone, replaced by the new coat.

Shirou opened his mouth, then hesitated, not sure how to begin. "Saber, what did they call you, before your name caused madness?"

Rin's head snapped towards him. "You don't ask your Servant their name in front of other people."

"Why not?" Shirou questioned.

"It's probably better to not know at all. That kind of information can be easily used against you. If an enemy master knows who your Servant is, they can more easily plan for your Servant."

Rin pointed at Archer. "Our Servants are figures of legend. If you know who that legend is, you can look them up to get tactical information. No need for spying or misdirection. Imagine if you knew your opponent had summoned Oda Nobunaga or Herakles or Scathatch or Merlin. How much easier it would be if you knew who it was instead of seeing an old man with a staff or a woman with a spear?"

"You aren't wrong, but wouldn't it be better for me to know so we can make plans?"

"Maybe, but you-"

Rin's response was cut off as Saber laughed. "It doesn't matter anyway, I never had a name."

Shirou turned back to her.

Saber started to talk, then stopped. "This feels wrong…" She muttered to herself.

Rin rolled her eyes. "I told you, you shouldn't just give this information out."

"No, not that." Saber paused, remembering. "No one has ever just told me things. They would give me hints, tidbits, fragments of lore, just enough to send me towards the next step. It was infuriating. It took ages to figure out what was going on. I'm not sure how consistent time was, so it might have been days. I'll concede that no one really knew everything that was going on, but not a single person who knew things ever told me everything they knew. So no. It's history time."

Rin sighed. This sounded like it was going to take a while. Shirou's focus was entirely on Saber.

"In mortal life, I was a Hunter." Saber's voice had dropped in volume, enunciating precisely, before returning to normal. "If we are legends, then mine begins on the night of the Great Hunt in the city of Yharnam."

There was a pause, Saber mulling over her words. "Yharnam was famed for its healing blood ministration. It was rumored that any ailment could be healed. However, Yharnam was highly insular, incredibly distrusting of outsiders. To get treatment was difficult at the best of times. But even for all their skill in healing, Yharnam could not prevent the Beast Plague that began to consume it long before I arrived there. The method of transmission was unclear, likely bloodborne, but few if any knew for certain. Madness would set in, victims losing themselves to bloodlust and eventually physical mutation. Claws, fangs, massive and uncontrolled muscles growth. The kind of thing you would expect from a beast plague. Families tearing each other apart, when one of their own would start to turn. Hunters to slay the beasts who were once their friends and neighbors."

Rin swallowed, looking uneasy.

"And there was nothing they could do about it?" Shirou asked.

Saber shook her head. "No. the plague resisted the efforts of blood ministration, and with all their skill in healing stemming from the Good Blood, the Healing Church could do almost nothing. I know they had researchers of a sort, but they were focused on other things."

Noticing a pebble on the ground, Saber smiled and snapped it up, tossing it up and down in one hand. "I have no memory of my time before Yharnam. What I was before the Great Hunt is lost to me. If I was a baker, a scholar, a surgeon, a hunter of a different breed, I will never know. I woke up on a table in an abandoned clinic. On my way out," Saber started ticking off her fingers, "I was partially disemboweled by the first beast I met. Attacked by a maddened townsman with an axe. Lost a lot of blood. Attacked by two guys with torches. Eventually I passed out and awakened in the Hunter's Workshop, entirely healed. There was an old man there, Gherman, who partially explained some things."

Saber looked back at Rin pointedly. "When I say he provided explanation, I mean he told me I was recruited as a hunter, the workshop was open if I needed it, and to go hunt beasts. That was it." Saber waved her hands around. "Nothing else! Just 'go hunt'. It was a joke, but he wasn't going to tell me anything else. And so I hunted."

"The city had been falling apart for years as beasts became increasingly common. All culminating in the Great Hunt. The whole city locked behind doors and beasts roaming the streets. It might have ended that night. Most of the hunters were gone, dead or lost to their own bloodthirst. A small handful were left, but they had goals of their own, they weren't going to be clearing the town. Which left me to hunt. With no name, I was just the hunter. Then someone called me The Good Hunter the first time. It stuck, somehow. And bizarrely managed to spread throughout the town in one night."

Saber, the Good Hunter, paused. "Did you want the bit about how my name drives people crazy too, or no?"

Rin humphed. Archer snickered and she glared at him.

Shirou cautiously stepped between Rin and Saber. "If you're doing this, you might as well."

Saber chuckled. "I told you there were many madmen in Yharnam. And I killed most of them. But part of my search led to brushing against everything they had grabbed so eagerly. Even trying to avoid it, it rubbed off on me. If you ever manage to reach a point where you can hear me without losing your mind, I'd be happy to introduce myself to you."

Rin was gaping at her. "What kind of knowledge breaks people like that?"

Saber smiled softly, her teeth gleaming eerily in the moonlight. "There are many who seek knowledge. Some seek knowledge for its own sake. Some seek knowledge to gain power over others. Some for more altruistic desires, such as protection or provision." She nodded at Rin. "As what you call a mage, I'm sure you seek knowledge to further your arcane craft." Then at Archer. "And you to improve your skills." Saber paused and looked contemplative. "There are also those who seek a particular kind of knowledge to elevate their minds, to cleanse themselves of what they see as humanities failings. What they seek is knowledge of the Cosmos, sometimes called the Eldritch Truth."

"I touched on this before. It is a knowledge not meant for man. You cannot brush against the Cosmos in search of Truth without being irrevocably changed. Most men go mad. Some have their bodies warped to match the things they have seen. I've killed a great many men who lost themselves to that Truth." Saber had a strange expression on her face. "Eventually I gave up and actively sought the knowledge that had driven them mad. I had some advantage, but even so, that knowledge irrevocably changed what I am. I cannot say I regret what I did, but even so…" With that, she quieted and focused back on walking. She looked almost… melancholy.

Rin tried and barely succeeded in biting back a growl. This was telling them everything? This opened up so many questions she didn't know where to start. Where was Yharnam? It sounded a place so dark fantastical there had to be history, legends, something, no matter how lost to the mists of time, yet never had she seen even the slightest scraps of such a of such a place. Then blood ministration, a Healing Church, "The Good Blood," a name that drove people into insanity? She'd have to pin Saber down and ask questions at some point later. Now… didn't seem to be the time.

Rin had no information on any of this. She was going to have to do a lot of research tonight.

And Saber felt odd. Rin twitched. Saber felt odd. Off, strange, weird, bizarre. She acted strangely, and her actual movements were a little off… And it wasn't just her actions. It was something more than that. Rin couldn't tell what exactly made her feel that way, and it was maddening. It probably had something to do with the name thing. Saber had outright stated that she had been fundamentally changed by her fights against seekers of Truth. There was a capital there, and other than Saber's vague explanation, and the Name, Eldritch Truth, Rin knew nothing else about it. Though… as Rin thought about it, she realized that had to be intentional. If Truth changed a person, most likely for madness and instability, Saber couldn't just go around talking about it.

Rin's eyes were burning a little, the world seeming to twist and fuzz, and she blinked rapidly trying to clear them. Hopefully she could get more rest tonight than she had the last few days.

The sound of footsteps stopped as they came to the church. Her coat brushing against her ankles, Saber looked up at the small building. It was neither large nor ornate. It lacked the excessive grandness of churches she had seen before. There was a feeling to it though, a beauty of stature, a certain level of elegance, saturated with hidden agony drifting away from the walls in this wisps. It reminded her of Yharnam.

While his and Saber's Masters were in the church talking with the Grail War Administrator, Archer hopped up to the roof to act as lookout. Just as he had settled into a comfortable position for the wait, Saber popped up in front of him. Archer's face remained impassive even as he barely succeeded in not making a startled shout and stabbing Saber in the face. He wasn't sure which he would have been more embarrassed about. Then Rin would make him apologize. That would be worse.

Saber was too close in his personal space when she started talking, eyes wide and friendly, shining and utterly unnerving. "If I can ask… You have a bunch of those swords, right? There's no way you would throw that sword so freely if you only had two or three."

Shifting so she was to his side, Saber continued looking at him intently. "Where do you keep them? I've got my own tricks, but I don't think you do the same thing I do."

Archer looked at Saber incredulously. Did she know what she was asking? Not even trying to trick or maneuver him into giving up information, just blatantly asking. "You are a very inquisitive woman, Saber."

"It's not my fault. I'm still young, I'm pretty sure it's part of my development. This whole thing-" she gestures at herself and Archer and around them, "-wasn't supposed to be part of it, I don't think. But who cares? It's fun and new and completely different than anything I've done before."

"So, those swords. What's your secret? I only know the one for that kind of thing." She smiled and it was like looking at laughing razers. She leaned in towards him, speaking as one conspirator to another. "I keep mine in a Dream." She laughed. "It's cheating, I know, but how else am I to carry everything around?"

Archer started to ask a question before Saber barreled on. "What do you mean-"

"Here, let me show you. What do I actually have in here?" Saber looked back at Archer. "I haven't actually looked since the summoning, and it was a while before that." She reached into nothing, Archer's eyes not understanding, and started pulling out an eclectic collection of weapons, tools, and other items. Each time she reached, it was like she pushed her hand into his blind spot, a tiny fragment of his vision where nothing was.

First was a handful of small glass vials full of red liquid. Most likely the blood mentioned before. Confirmed by Saber's muttering, "Is this all I have for blood vials? That's going to be annoying. I'll need to stock up, but where am I going to get more? Run back to the Dream when we get back to the house, I suppose." They were followed by a small handful of strangely fluid silver bullets. "Easy enough to get more," Saber said. A double handful of grey pebbles with small divets in each and every one. A couple intricately detailed throwing knives with thinly serrated edges and no special history to them. Sturdy though. A skull with slugs oozing from a crack in the forehead.

Strange weapons followed. Names and memories and steel flickered into his mind with each new reveal. A long saber with a dagger on the handle, built to be broken apart and designed specifically to avoid the use of something, instead to require abnormal skill instead. Another blade, similar in design to the first, this one requiring particular strength of blood to use well. A mace that sparked deep within with dancing electrical currents to burst forth with a little silver blood. Uncanny Rakuyo. Chikage. Tinitrus. "That's not right, where did you go…?" Saber whispered. The speed with which she pulled out weapons increased. Some kind of cleaver that looked like half a large saw welded to a pipe. Another of similar design, but narrower and with more teeth. A spear that was also a gun. A gun that was also a rapier. A large and brutal axe. A large slug…? Archer couldn't parse that one, couldn't even try to trace it. Pistols and rifles, even what was unbelievably, yet unmistakably, a cannon.

All the weapons had brutal histories, both before and after Saber had taken possession of them. Blood and blood and blood.

Then… a graceful blade that was two in one, fast and shining, dancing in painful duty. He could only trace the shape, a part of something of its history, but its material was hidden from him, pain lancing behind his eyes as he tried to comprehend something he had no context for. A choking noise forced it way out of his throat.

Saber stopped and shoved the blade back into her Dream. "I've got more, and I still couldn't find what I was looking for, but we'll leave that for now." She squinted at him, eyes brighter than claws, sharper than mirrors. "You see some things a little too clearly, and I don't want to have you broken before events start shaping up."

With her weapons gone to the dream she stored them in, Archer was able to return his focus to Saber, panting, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. "What was that?" he swallowed thickly.

"That was the Blade of Mercy. Wielded by a Hunter of Hunters, a thankless duty to seek out and cut down hunter's who lost themselves before they could hurt more than they had saved." Saber clacked her teeth together. "I don't actually know if they all used the Blade of Mercy, I only ever met the one. She was nice. She might also have been the only one…" Saber lost focus as she considered mysteries she didn't know.

Archer gritted his teeth, still trying to find equilibrium. "No, not what it was used for. What is it? What's it made from?"

Saber cocked her head. "It's forged from Siderite. Star metal, fallen from the sky and remade into blades. It carries a bit of its own enchantment. Magnetism too for some reason."

"A meteorite. That would do it." Archer laughed, the sound low, devoid of humor.

"Do what? What would it do?"

"I do see very clearly when it comes to blades, Saber. I see all to well. But even as well as I see, I still need to be able to understand."

"I can help with understanding if you want. I can't promise that you'll be sane after though."

Archer's lip quirked. "I think I'll be alright."

Saber smiled widely at him. "Now that I showed you how I do it, will you show me your trick?"

"You're still on about that?"

"Of course. It's always fun to learn new things. New tricks. Better and different ways of doing anything."

He sighed. "I create them," Archer admitted reluctantly. She had given him information and shown him blades of which he'd never seen the like; it was only fair that he gave her something in return. They were provisional allies anyway, right?

Saber smiled, lips sleek. "You create them. And that way you never run out." She started muttering to herself, turning and moving away from Archer. "Are they weaker than normal blades then, or stronger? Does that give them some level of mutability, or are they limited to copies? Only those blades, or others? Limited to swords? Limited in number?"

She rounded on Archer again. "Show me. I want to see."

"Even as nominal allies, even with what you showed me, I've already given you more information than I'm comfortable with, Saber."

Saber cocked her head. "Why?" What did alliances have to do with anything?

Sighing, Archer tried to find a way to explain that Saber would understand. "This is a war. Technically small scale, but still a war." He considered mentioning that with Servants, small scale was relative, but it wasn't important to right now. "Do you follow?" Saber nodded.

"Good. It is our duty," Archer tapped his chest, "we, the Servants of this war, to win. To use any trick, any subterfuge. To that end, voluntarily giving out information about our capabilities is a neglectful action at best, actively self-sabotaging at worst."

Saber looked at him blankly. "I'm not following. If someone plans for what I can do, I'll just pull out another trick. If I fall, I'll just come back and do better." She gestured wildly with her hands. "Now show me, I want to see."

Archer looked at Saber. As unsettling as she was, she acted like a child. "You aren't going to leave me alone until I show you, are you?" At the violent shaking of Saber's head, he gave up.

"Fine, but only once."

Archer focused and held out his hand in front of him. Kanshou appeared in his grip. Looking up at Saber, he saw her eyes focused intently on the blade, eyes dark and shimmering more than would make sense from the available light.

"I hadn't looked at the blade before. It was nothing, then false, then real. This isn't just some copy; you truly create the blade. How?" Muttering to herself again. "A fragment of Dream reforged into waking reality, but Dream stuff should still remain Dream even in the waking world. Functional, usable, yes, but still Dream…"

Saber paused her muttering and turned to Archer. "Thank you." She ambled off towards the peak of the roof, muttering again.

Archer watched her move away, concerned. In moments, just watching him trace a sword, Saber had figured out more about the mechanics of the creation of his weapons than most people who had known him for years. She thought he saw swords too clearly, but she saw everything more clearly than her knew it could be seen.

He turned from her, settling back into a ready but waiting position.

Saber caressed the wooden doors as she stepped to them. They were small doors, only a little taller than she was, nothing to massive doors of the Grand Cathedral of Yharnam, but they were church doors, and they were familiar.

About to open the doors, she paused. Saber looked up at the front of the building. There was nothing there she could see. She looked more closely. Still nothing. Good.

Saber cracked the door open and peaked her head in.

Inside, the priest was talking with Shirou, Rin to the side.

Saber stopped and listened at the door. Inside, the priest was talking with her summoner. Something about the cause of a fire. And her summoner stiffened, his back straightening in resolve.

"I won't let things happen like that again."

"Truly? After so willingly contemplating abandoning your command seals and your Servant, you will fight?"

Oh… was this part of her summoner's tragic history? Not that he'd given any indication that he really had one, but it seemed to be appropriate for the scenario. Mage orphaned by a massive fire, only to find that the ritual he'd been pulled into years later was the same event that had orphaned him. She smelled intrigue and drama. How delightful. This be even better than the time Violetta had tried to romance that poor baker and scared him off. She'd chased him down six times with intent to seduce the boy, but frightened him off each time.

"Yes, I will fight. For those who died before, and to protect those who might die again."

He wanted to protect people? He'd have his work cut out for him. Not many people were as considerate about collateral as she was.

Wait, he hadn't wanted to fight? What had he thought would happen if he didn't? It seemed like Servants needed a Master to supply them with power and an anchor point in the waking world. Would he have just turned her loose? Saber didn't need power, she could sustain herself, but if she couldn't? He didn't seem cruel enough to just abandon her.

Well, that didn't really matter. He was going to fight. And Saber wanted to speak with this priest.

"Rejoice Emiya Shirou! For your wish shall be granted."

She pushed the door open fully and stepped into the church. Breathing in deeply, Saber savored the smell in the air. It made the reminder of Yharnam all the more intense, old blood in the air, prayers and cries baked into the walls, coating it in layers. The church was simple, contrasted to the grand cathedrals of home. Home. Was Yharnam home? It felt like it sometimes, but she'd only ever been there for one night. A long night, but still only one. The place she truly felt safe was the Dream. Yet, safety wasn't what she sought… Maybe at the start, still only a fledgling hunter, when she died once for every other beast she put down. Blood and Insight and Dream had remade her into something so very different.

Yharnam was a hunting ground, beast and madmen around every corner. But the Dream was so closely tied to Yharnam… Were they the cathedrals of home, or of Yharnam? She brushed the thoughts aside like so many cobwebs. Since when was she so introspective? It might have something to do with possessing a human body and brain after so long as a mostly incorporeal being in Dreams. Or maybe just the nature of spending so much time with little interaction… No! No more introspection. She wanted to talk to the priest.

Saber smiled politely at the priest, clasping her hands together at her waist, elbows out, and bowing politely in the proper female church greeting taught to her by Adella.

He inclined his head in return. Looking at the man, Saber saw a nugget of darkness nestled in his heart. The metaphysical ball overlaid the meaty organ; it throbbed and pulsed in time with his heartbeat. It was a strange thing, not quite something of the dream, but not something properly of the waking world either. Some kind of their magecraft…? It must have been powerful to slip into her vision without her opening her eyes to look at it. It caught in her sight, a splinter in a board, snagging fabric pulled across.

"Was there something you wanted?" She'd lost focus again.

"Forgive me. I am Saber in this war, as I'm sure you know."

"I did indeed, but it is still polite to introduce oneself. I am Kotomine Kirei."

"My summoner was taking so long, I thought I'd come and see what the cause was."

"He was telling me the history of the war Saber. Come on, let's go." Her summoner was… frustrated? Angry? One of those that was a bit past annoyance she thought.

"Before we leave, a question?" Saber asked, directed at the priest. "This Grail of yours, what is it?"

The priest raised an eyebrow. "I had thought you would know what you're fighting for?"

Saber shook her head. "Not that. What does it look like? How are we to know what it is when it comes time to claim it?"

"You seem confident in your chances. Traditionally, referring to the Holy Grail is to refer to the cup of Christ, a chalice used by Jesus of Nazareth at his last supper before his betrayal and subsequent execution. It was believed that to drink from the Grail would grant healing or perhaps everlasting life."

"For us, it is a spiritual vessel, containing the mana to grant the wish at the end of the Grail War. It is not a cup or grail in a traditional sense, though I suppose you could still consider it a kind of chalice."

Glancing at the priest, Saber smiled widely. "Thank you." Healing and life and chalices. This place seemed to have little interaction or connection to Yharnam, but the similarities were too close to ignore.

Then, "I like this church of yours, it reminds me of home."

She missed the deeply concerned glances Rin and Shirou shot at each other. The priest's lips quirked slightly. "I am glad this church of mine can provide you with fond memories."

Cutting in, Rin spoke, "How could I forget? She doesn't know anything about the Grail War. I had to explain things to her and her Master. How did that happen?"

The priest raised an eyebrow at Saber, then turned to Shirou. "Describe your summoning."

Shirou narrowed his eyes. "Why?"

"If I am to determine the cause of your Servant's lack of proper knowledge of this time as provided by the Holy Grail, the simplest place to begin is in your summoning."

"Oh." Shirou's gaze dropped, chastened. "I didn't really do any kind of intentional summoning. I was attacked by Lancer and trying to defend myself. I was determined not to die. My life had been saved, I refused to waste it in a death as pointless as that. Then as he struck down at me, Saber appeared, blocking his attack."

"You are truly fortunate boy." The priest shook his head slowly.

"Why?"

"You have no skill as a magus." Kirei declared bluntly. "You had no intent to summon a Servant, even if you had been marked. By all rights, you should be dead. Lancer would have killed you for witnessing the Holy Grail War, and that the end of it. Instead through fortuitous events unlikely enough that you could almost be considered blessed, Saber was summoned to your side and fought on your behalf."

"As such, through your poor skill as a magus and lack of proper summoning conditions, it seems likely that this is the cause of the Grail failing to impart the relevant knowledge upon Saber. Do your best to fill her in."

Rin looked at Shirou. "We've got a lot of work to do if you're going to be any use at all. At least you summoned a good Saber."

They begin walking home in silence. New knowledge weighed heavy on Shirou, and Saber, somewhat oblivious to it as she was, was content to let it be.

Less out of courtesy for her summoner though. There was a familiar scent in the air, taking most of her focus. It was ever so faint, familiar, but twisted. What is was, she couldn't say, beyond its infuriating familiarity. There was just the slightest hint of moonlight woven in between the other threads of scent. A touch of something hungry. Saber had just begun to place the smell when a little girl walked out of the mist and stopped in front of them.

She was actually really adorable. She looked like a smaller scale version of the Doll, pale skin, white hair, graceful demeanor. The cheekbones were a little low, the nose a little thinner, the eyes were wrong color, but otherwise they were near identical. The way the little Doll held herself could not be more different than the Doll though. Where the Doll was calm and peaceful, the little Doll held herself imperiously, a noble lady deigning to step among the common folk. If Annalise were ever able to leave her throne, she might hold herself a little like this. There was also readiness in the little Doll's posture, expectation of violence, she was prepared to attack of defend at a moment's notice despite her small size.

"Hello Onii-chan. I see you summoned your servant."

"Who are you? You never gave me your name." It was the odd girl he had run into before.

The girl curtsied. "I am Ilyasviel von Einzbern."

The name seemed familiar to her summoner's ally. "Einzbern… That's…" She stood still. "They are one of the founding families of the Grail War. Emiya-"

Rin spun around incredulously to start at Shirou. "You know her? How? Why didn't you say anything?"

"I didn't know she was involved in the war! I didn't even know about the war yesterday. She just walked by me and said something cryptic about summoning or dying. I didn't know what it was about."

"If we survive this, we're going to have a long talk about relevant information."

"Are you done?" Ilya looked put out.

Was the smell coming from the little girl? Saber looked more closely at her. There was something about the eyes… Was it the shape of the pupils? The color? They were slightly distorted, but not enough to place, circled by bright red.

Saber was distracted again from her musings by something the little Doll said.

"Say 'Hello', Berserker."

The ringing that indicated the presence of a Servant faded into auditory range as the outline of a massive man faded into view behind the little girl. Was he there the whole time? How? That changed things. But concerns about future safety and hidden enemies were secondary to the now revealed Servant.

The giant of a man had on old and worn leather boots and creased pants, a long black overcoat draped down his body ending at his ankles. A long white scarf tied around his neck hanging around the back. Slightly rumpled black hat and wrappings around his eyes. Trick axe in his right hand and blunderbuss in his left. This was… really not great.

She hoped the following fight wouldn't be too terrible, she had plenty of practice after all.

"Hello Father Gascgoine."

End Chapter

AN: I don't think I'm ever going to get this as good as I want it with my current level of writing ability. Instead I'll keep writing and hopefully getting better. There's a really annoying balance to find between trying to make a chapter good, and getting way too obsessed over little details that may or may not be important.

For the purposes of this fic, I'm assuming at Archer's level of skill his tracing of weapons is in a sort of default "on" setting, so that any weapons he looks at he traces and understands, sort of like normal people look at objects and see color. You can choose to not pay attention, but it's still going to be something you see. This has and potentially will continue to screw him over a bit with Saber's many weapons.

Omake:

Archer settled back onto the roof after Saber wandered off. Shortly, he heard a thump. In an instant, he was at full attention, head turning back and forth looking for the source of the noise. He saw Saber came around the front of the church on the ground. She didn't glance his way as she hopped up to the roof, walked to the peak, then fell backwards off. Archer blinked.

Archer peaked his head over the edge and saw her lying on her back. "What are you doing?"

"Before all this," she gestured vaguely. "I used to be able to fly. Or float at least. Drift about in the sky." She waved her hand again. "It doesn't seem to work anymore."

She'd been able to fly. Why not? It made as much sense as the rest of her. Archer stared at her.

"Though this fall would have hurt before that, so I'll take what I can get."

Saber got up and went into the church, no concern for the Archer she was leaving behind staring after her, mouth hanging slightly open.

Omake AN: This was originally going to be right before Saber went into the church, but it didn't fit the tone of the scene. Still, it amused me, so have it as an omake/deleted scene.


	5. SaberGood Hunter Character Sheet

True Name: Unknown, The Good Hunter

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Strength: B

Agility: B

Endurance: A

Mana: D (A)

Luck: C

Noble Phantasm: E-EX

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance (A) – Cancels spells of A-Rank or below. In practice, the Servant is untouchable to modern magi, so it would not be an exaggeration to title the Servant a "Magus Killer". This skill is bolstered by one of Saber's Noble Phantasms, which is why it has such a high rank.

Riding (N/A) – Saber has never ridden upon any beasts in life, as such she has no ranks in Riding.

Personal Skills:

Eye of the Mind (False) B (EX): Is a natural talent to avoid danger on the basis of an innate 6th sense, intuition, or prescience, where accuracy of instinct has been augmented by experience.

Eternal Arms Mastership D (B): Prevents degradation of fighting skills when under the effect of mental hindrance. Mastership of combat arts has reached the point of being said to be unrivaled in one's era. By complete merging of mind, body and technique, it is possible to make use of full fighting skills even when under the influence of any sort of mental hindrance.

A Great One is a being of strange geometries, unknown to the mind of man. A body built in the image of man would thus be something unfamiliar. But, should the body of man be remembered, other knowledge might be retained as well.

Clairvoyance B (EX): Saber has been granted eyes on the inside and through them sees the world through the lens of the cosmos. At this rank, Saber can see alternate realities or different layers of this one with much focus, revealing that which is hidden or unknown.

The Good Hunter possessed great Insight in life, revealing much that was hidden. Ascending her existence revealed the Eldritch Truth and the Good Hunter was enraptured.

Summoned as merely the Good Hunter grants Saber access to the Insight she possessed before the end of the hunt, granting Saber a (B) rank. However, the Great One the Good Hunter became noticed the brush against her existence and stepped into the pale shadow of her True self, bringing with her the Eldritch Truth of a Great One, however young she may be.

Bravery (A+): The ability to negate mental interference such as pressure, confusion, and fascination. Not only is Saber immune to mental interference; but she also receives a boost to physical parameters and increased melee damage.

In life, Saber fought in the darkest depths of Nightmare and highest of towers brushing the cosmos. She has slain men, beasts, and Great Ones, insomuch as Great Ones can be slain. There is nothing that exists upon this Earth that can make her falter. But then, this Earth is not all that is.

Pioneer of the Stars (EX): The unique Skill given to heroes that became turning points in the human history. All difficult voyages and challenges which are considered "impossible" turn into "events that can be realized."

The Good Hunter transcended Humanity, becoming a Great One and thus uplifted her fellow humans into a "Second Childhood."

Independent Manifestation (EX): Independent Manifestation is a special Skill that permits unsupported manifestation into reality, without necessity of energy cost or of summoning by a Master; effectively, the Skill serves as an enhanced version of Independent Action. Being that the skill holder is signified as a confirmed existence, a resistance is rendered against the instantaneous imposition of death and attacks affected by time manipulation.

Battle Continuation (A): A skill that allows for the continuation of combat after sustaining mortal wounds. It will also reduce mortality rate from injury. It is possible to fight even with deadly injuries and can remain alive so long as one does not receive a decisive fatal wound. Bonus Effect of gaining a high chance of escaping combat and reaching allied territory alive after being defeated.

The Hunters of Yharnam are a unique breed. Those associated with the Hunter's Dream even more so. The Good Hunter is capable of fighting until her body no longer functions and perhaps even then.

In a normal summoning, that would be her limit. However, as her body is tied to her Great One self, she may even be capable of fighting past death, for the death of a Great One is a queer thing.

Hunter of Beasts (B): In her legend, the Good Hunter fought numerous victims of the beast plague, from new hunters drunk with blood to powerful hunters fully lost to human form, all fell to her blades. The Good Hunter receives a single increase in rank against any beastly opponent or consumer of blood.

Slayer of Great Ones and Kin (B): As with beasts, Saber fought against Great Ones, their worshipers, and many who attempted to become or partially succeeded in becoming Great Ones themselves. All fell to her blades, even if she herself fell many times to them. Saber gains a rank up against any enemy classified as Kin, Great One, or possesses sufficient knowledge of the Eldritch Truth as to make little difference.

Noble Phantasms:

Hunter's Toolkit (E-A): A collection of tools, both weapons and artifacts used by the Hunter in life. This includes numerous trick weapons, multiple arcane focuses, magical gems, firearms, and runes.

Hunter's Dream (A): Were the Good Hunter to be summoned in a standard fashion without a connection to her Great One self, the Hunter's Dream would manifest as a dream plane, home to the Hunter's Workshop. As the Hunter is bound to the dream, she may create a small number of lanterns linking her to the Dream. Upon death, she would return to the Hunter's Dream in a weakened state. However, as the Great One the Good Hunter became is aware of the copy of the Good Hunters human form summoned to fight in the Grail War, the Hunter's Dream instead links to the location where the Ascended Great One truly exists. The Good Hunter will instead return immediately to full strength at the nearest lantern or at least once she figures out how to do so. As few have sufficient eyes to see the Great One manifest, there are not many who might notice her return.

Childhood's Beginning (EX): Before the night of the hunt was over, Saber had consumed three Third Umbilical Cords, granting her great Insight. When she refused a quiet ending to the hunt and cut down the first hunter, a fitful presence descended from the moon. This presence too was slain, and in doing so, Saber ascended into something more, becoming in truth what many had failed to be, rising past Kin and becoming a Great One herself. When the Grail created a copy of Saber from the Throne of Heroes to fight in the Grail War, it caught the attention of the adolescent Great One the Good Hunter became. As such, the Good Hunter reached into the summoned Saber, functionally making her the true Good Hunter, fully empowered by a being far beyond what humans or even Servants could comprehend. In effect, Saber is no longer limited by her master's prana, but by her own abilities and skills as a Hunter and as a Great One. She is sustained by her Great One self, and may manifest abilities not expressed by her legend due to the touch of a being whose abilities can still grow and change beyond a previous legend.

I'm not quite going to say this is open for debate, but if you think any of these are blatantly and massively wrong, let me know as well as why you think so. The rankings for FSN are kind of weird to try to figure out.


End file.
